From Captivity to Monastic Life
Born around 1650 in the Kingdom of Kartli, the region of Georgia known historically as Iberia, the future saint bore the secular name Andria. Ottoman forces captured him and sold him into slavery at the slave market of Constantinople.
During his time in the Ottoman capital he was trained in a range of artisan crafts — wood sculpting, painting, embroidery, and calligraphy — skills that would later distinguish his work as a printer and engraver. The Patriarch of Constantinople ransomed him from slavery, after which he took monastic vows at the Patriarchate compound in Istanbul.
Master Printer and Enlightener
Patriarch Dositheos brought him to Iași around 1682, where a Greek printing office operated. In 1689 Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu invited him to Wallachia, and by 1691 he was placed in charge of the newly founded printing press in Bucharest.
His Romanian-language Gospels of 1693 marked a major liturgical milestone, advancing the use of the people's own tongue in the services. Over his career he published approximately twenty-five books in Romanian, Church Slavonic, Greek, and Arabic. He was notably the first printer in Wallachia to use Arabic fonts, and among his multilingual works was a Greek-Arabic Missal of 1702.
Appointed superior of Snagov Monastery in 1695, he established a printing operation there before returning to Bucharest in 1702. In 1709 he founded the first Georgian printing press, in Tbilisi. Working through his pupil Mihai Iștvanovici, he personally cut the typographic characters for the inaugural printed Georgian Gospels of 1710 and also produced a catechism.
Preacher and Builder
His homiletic collection, the Didahii (Didache), comprised sermons that sharply critiqued contemporary habits and morals, incorporating classical philosophical references alongside Christian sources.
He constructed the All-Saints Monastery in Bucharest, built between 1713 and 1715 while he served as Metropolitan; it was completed and consecrated in 1715 and was subsequently renamed Antim Monastery in his honor.
Martyrdom and Legacy
Anthimus became Bishop of Râmnic in 1705 and Metropolitan of Wallachia in 1708, serving until 1715. His political opposition to Ottoman control over Wallachia put him at odds with the Phanariote leadership. Prince Nicholas Mavrocordatos imprisoned and then exiled him toward Mount Sinai.
Ottoman forces intercepted him in transit, and he was assassinated somewhere in modern-day Bulgaria around September or October 1716; his remains were likely discarded in either the Maritsa or Tundzha rivers. The synaxarion relates that he was drowned by the Turks for the faith.
The Romanian Orthodox Church canonized him on September 27, 1992, recognizing him as Holy Hierarch Martyr Anthim the Iberian, Metropolitan of Wallachia. The Church designated 2016 as a commemorative year marking three hundred years since his martyrdom. He stands as a symbol of Georgian-Romanian relations, and the Antim Cup, a rugby trophy contested annually between Romania and Georgia, bears his name.
Relics & Shrines
The Antim Monastery in Bucharest, which he built between 1713 and 1715 and consecrated in 1715, stands on Mitropolit Antim Ivireanu Street, no. 29. It was restored by Patriarch Justinian Marina in the 1960s and by 2005 housed seven monks. The site includes a museum dedicated to religious objects and to the life of Anthim the Iberian.
During the communist period under Nicolae Ceaușescu, the monastery faced demolition threats. The engineer Eugeniu Iordăchescu led a preservation project that physically moved the church to a nearby location, saving it from destruction.
