The Library of the Metropolitan Palace from Iași at the Revoking of Metropolitan Sofronie Miclescu of Moldavia

Abstract

Metropolitan Sofronie Miclescu was dismissed on the 7th of November 1860 by Alexandru Ioan Cuza because he opposed the secularization of the Church’s wealth. Immediately after this removal, the government of the United Romanian Principalities began preparing the inventory of all the assets of the highest religious institution of Moldavia. Thus, not only the vestments, furniture and tools of the Metropolitan of Moldavia and Suceava were inventoried but also the cultural heritage of this institution, consisted in liturgical accessories and vestments, old books and documents as well as portraits of the country’s hierarchs and lords. The listing proves that the Metropolitan of Moldavia had a large library, which consisted of several hundred volumes, written in Romanian, Greek, Russian, German, Latin and French, held in several rooms of the Metropolitan Palace, together with the old archive of the institution. Many items were lost during the secularization procedure as well as during the two World Wars, so the inventory kept at the National Archives of Iași is the only evidence of the cultural heritage that existed in 1860.