A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 31 - Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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The Orthodox Christian News Service |
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PARCHMENTS FROM 13th –15th CENTURIES FOUND INSIDE THE WALLS OF ORTHODOX CHURCH IN RÂŞNOV (BRAŞOV), ROMANIAIn Râşnov (County of Braşov) a museum of the Orthodox Church St. Nicolas will open. The most important pieces exhibited in the museum shall be six parchments discovered eight years ago by parish priest Nicolae Gh. Puchianu-Moşoiu inside the wall of the church. The church St Nicolas was built near the ancient citadel of Râşnov, on which grounds there seems to have been a praying place in the Dacian-Roman times, a building that was preserved until the times of the settlement of Transylvanian Saxons, 1211-1225. At that time, the inhabitants of the place were pushed to the foot of the mountain, in the coniferous forest. Built on a slope, a rough field, the small church deteriorated with time. In 1996, with God’s help and at the orders of the Archbishopric of Sibiu (subordinated to the Metropolitan of Ardeal, Crişana and Maramureş), the holy place received the name of Voivodal Church and the restoration work was commenced. During the restoration, it was noticed that the foundation of the church was made out of pure stone, cemented together with soil and lime, according to the ancient building methods. The church was consolidated with strong pillars. Upon uncovering of the roof, it became possible to study more closely the dark places that amassed over time layers over layers of residual materials. During the endeavour of eliminating these residual layers working side by side with the restoration team, the parish priest discovered fragments of six parchments, size 20/25 cm, made out of cow or dear leather, written with liturgical texts and marginal notes. After carefully cleaning them from dirt and smoke with a hen feather – operation that lasted three months – the priest took the parchments to the Braşov branch of the State Archives. Unfortunately, in Braşov there was no specialist able to decipher the texts on the parchments found in the attic of the church. At the Bucharest headquarters of the State Archives, the result was the same. Professor Ioan Scurtu, Director of the State Archives, stated that on territories inhabited by Romanian populations, such writing was unseen. Consequently, the priest returned home with the parchments, where, with the aid of Russian, Bulgarian and Serbian dictionaries he began the process of deciphering the words written on the parchments. Many of these words remain yet unknown, probably in Medium-Bulgarian, written with uncial characters, resembling Egyptian writing.
The texts are, in their great majority, written in Slavonic language. The letters are ornamented with vignettes, painted in orange. The priest, a passionate lover of history, believes that the texts date since the 13th, 14th or 15th century, from the same period as the two manuscripts in the possession of the Romanian Academy, also discovered in the church of Râşnov by historians Ioan Bogdan (1864-1919) and Sextil Puşcariu (1877-1948), who also dated them.
In addition to the parchments, fragments of the printing work of Deacon Coresi (c. 1590), as well as over 40 manuscripts on written on Venetian paper, more ancient, were discovered. Some of them are in Slavonic; others are in Hebrew and some in Romanian. The manuscripts are very different from each other in writing and vignettes, which led to the conclusion that in Râşnov there must have been a veritable school of copyists. The parish priest believes, although his opinion has not yet been confirmed by historians, that the documents written in Romanian could be even more ancient that the Letter of Neacşu of Câmpulung (1521), know up to the present moment as the oldest document written in Romanian.
Researcher of the historical and cultural past of the area, priest Nicolae Gh. Puchianu-Moşoiu is the author of several books in the field.
The first documentary proof of the
settlement of Râşnov, was also found with the
occasion of restoration work on the church St.
Nicolas, and is dated in 1231. It seems this is
the oldest Orthodox church of Transylvania, the
first foundation of Dan I (1384-1386), the great
grandson of Basarab I, founder of the Wallachian
Principality in 1324, through the unification of
political structures pre-existent between the
Carpathian Mountains and the Danube. The pronaos
and the steeple were added in 1773. Important also
by the gothic architecture, specific to the times
of its foundation, the church resisted the Turkish
and Tartar invasions, earthquakes and unfavourable
weather conditions. The information was selected
from the Monitorul Expres (Express Monitor)
of Sibiu of July 15, 2004, also published by
Observatorul religios (The Religious Observer)
of Bogdan Aurel Teleanu, on the same day. |
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