167 PATRIARCHS OF ANTIOCH IN THE ROMANIAN COUNTRIES (16 th and 17 th centuries) DANIEL FLAUT The Patriarchy of Antioch played a significant role in the early history of the Christian Church. Later, for political reasons, its role diminished. In 633, Antioch came under Arabic rule and four centuries later, in 1098, it was conquered by the knights of the First Crusade, led by Bohemond I. The creation of the Principality of Antioch was followed by the appointment of a Latin Patriarch; the Orthodox patriarchs were obliged to find refuge somewhere else, in Constantinople, in particular. In 1268, Antioch was reconquered by the Arabs, and the Orthodox patriarchs were allowed to return to their holy see. In 1342, the decay of Antioch forced Patriarch Ignatius I to locate his see in Damascus. When Syria fell under Ottoman rule in 1517, the situation of the Patriarchy of Antioch became extremely difficult. Under these circumstances, the patriarchs of Antioch were forced to travel to the Romanian Countries to get support 1 . However, few Antioch patriarchs traveled to the region in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in contrast with the far larger number of those who went to Constantinople, or Jerusalem. The links between the Romanian Countries and the Patriarchy of Antioch were weaker than to those the Patriarchy maintained with the Greek Orthodox churches 2 . Besides, the Romanian Countries were to far away from Syria, and the patriarchs of Antioch, of Arabic extraction, could not communicate easily with their peoples since they had no knowledge of Romanian. The first Patriarch of Antioch to visit the Romanian Countries was Joachim V Dau‘ (1581-1592). In 1587, he journeyed to Russia, through 1 Ioan Ivan, Patriarhi ortodocşi în Moldova/ Orthodox Patriarchs in Moldavia, in ’’Teologie şi Viaţă. Revistă de gândire şi spiritualitate ortodoxă’’ / ’’Theology and Life. Journal of Orthodox Thinking and Spirituality’’ (henceforth abbreviated as ,,TV’’), s.n., III (LXIX), no. 8-10, 1993, p. 129. 2 Daniel Flaut, Raporturile Bisericii Ortodoxe Române cu Patriarhia de la Constantinopol (sec. XIV -XV I)/ The Relations of the Romanian Orthodox Church with the Patriarchy of Constantinople (XIV -XV I centuries), in ’’Pontica’’, XXXIII-XXXIV, 2000-2001, p. 541-542.