The Romanians between the Orient and the Occident

Abstract

Christianity has forever marked the lives of the peoples who have embraced it. Through it, people have understood that this life is not the sole purpose of their existence, that preparing for the encounter of the living God, the One who sacrifices himself on the cross, then to overcome death by the resurrection, is the destination to which we are heading. That is why our entire existence must be placed in the service of God and others, so that we may be placed at the right of the Fair Judge (Matthew 25). This study aims to present some aspects regarding our Latinity and Orthodoxy - as a true bridge between East and West. Also, the influence of the Byzantines in the life of the Romanian people will be analysed as well as the adoption of the Byzantine-Slavonian rite in our medieval culture. Thus, a complex image of our Romanian culture and spirituality specific to the 9th-14th centuries can be drawn. “ Overwhelmed for almost a millennium by the migratory peoples who monopolized the attention of the time historiography, the Dacian-Roman descendants transformed during the invasions of the Romanians will reappear on the stage of historiography after the first feudal states were established, Basarab I, Mircea the Elder, Iancu of Hunedoara, Stephen the Great as political and military forces of unquestionable importance, especially after the appearance of the Turks in the South-Eastern Europe .”[4]