Romfilatelia, introduces into circulation, on Thursday, October 24th this year a cultural anniversary issue entitled “Metropolitan Dosoftei. 400 years since birth”, composed of a postage stamp, a perforated souvenir sheet and a First Day Cover.
The great theologian and scholar who brought the Romanian language to the Holy Altar, Metropolitan Dosoftei, was born in the former Citadel of Suceava on October 26th, 1624 in the Barilă family, related to Romanian families from Transylvania and the Lviv lands. At his baptism he received the name Dimitrie.
He learned from Moldavian teachers and at the School of the Orthodox Brotherhood at the Monastery of the Mother of God in Lviv. Showing great zeal for the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, he was ordained a monk at the monastery of Probota in 1649 under the name of Monk Dosoftei. The authority he acquired through his way of life in the monastery community gave him a prestige which gave him the opportunity to accede to the Church hierarchy. In 1658 he became bishop of Huși, then of Roman, and in 1671 he was elected Metropolitan of Moldavia.
The very good relations with the Patriarch of Moscow allowed him to bring to the Metropolitanate of Iași the necessary means of printing with which he printed in Romanian the main liturgical books, some of which he translated himself. He was one of the hierarchs who promoted the introduction of the Romanian language in the church.
The most important work of Metropolitan Dosoftei of Moldavia is Psaltirea în versuri (The Psalms versified) (1673), whose translation established him as the “first Romanian poet”.
Along with Dimitrie Cantemir, he was one of the great scholars of Moldavia and of the entire Romanian space. The Romanian Orthodox Church gave him a great and well-deserved honour: the canonization in 14th of October 2005 of Metropolitan Dosoftei, in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Iasi, making him one of the Saints of the Church, with a feast day on December 13th.
Metropolitan Dosoftei is the one who brought the Orthodox faith into the elite of European cults. He is recognized as the first translator of religious service books into Romanian.
The house in which he lived in Iași, located in the vicinity of the “Saint Nicholas Royal Church”, the foundation of the Voivode Stephen the Great and Holy, is known as the “Holy Hierarch Dosoftei – Metropolitan” Museum.
A bronze statue, paid tribute to the great scholar almost 50 years ago, guards the entrance to the museum, depicting him in a pose that encourages meditation, writing and reading.
Romfilatelia thanks His Eminence Teofan, Metropolitan of Moldavia and Bucovina, the representatives of the Romanian Academy Library, the National Archives of Romania and the National Museum of Romanian Literature for the documentary support for the development of this issue of postage stamps.
