Orthodox Icon of St. Anthimus the Iberian

Saint Anthimus the Iberian

September 27th
Troparion (Tone 3)
O holy Father, Hierarch Anthimus, with diligence thou didst order well the pastors and instructors of thy flock, and with divine wisdom didst pour forth rivers of holy words. Thou didst give thy life for thy flock and obtain the crown of martyrdom from Christ God, to Whom do thou pray, O holy Father, Hierarch Anthimus, to grant peace and great mercy to those who celebrate thy holy memory.

St. Anthimus was born around 1650 in Iberia, which we know more commonly today as Georgia, to devout parents, named John and Maria. He was named Andrew at his Baptism. In his youth, he was taken as a slave by Muslim Turks to Constantinople. There he learned Greek, Arabic and Turkish, as well as sculpture, painting and embroidery. At some point he was liberated. Around 1690, he was brought to Romania by Constantine Brincoveanu and learned the printing trade from Bishop Metrophanes. After a year he became a monk and a priest. For the rest of his life, he printed liturgical books in Greek, Slavonic, Arabic and Romanian. He established Romanian as the liturgical language of the country. For the first time all of the Orthodox churches in Romania had all of their services in the vernacular. This greatly strengthened the faithful. From 1696 to 1701, Anthimus was Abbot of Snagov Monastery. From 1701 to 1705, he returned to direct the Royal Printing House once again in Bucharest. In 1705, he was elevated to Bishop at Rîmnicu Vîlcea, and founded a printing house there. In 1708, he was elevated to be Metropolitan of Wallachia, over all of Romania. He founded more printing houses and laid down a system of disciplined, regular almsgiving to provide for the poor, for prisoners, for widows, for maidens needing dowries, and for the advanced education of talented poor youths. In 1716 Metropolitan Anthimus was arrested and imprisoned by order of the Turks. He was to be removed from office and exiled to St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai. Instead, the soldiers killed him. They either threw him into Tungia River near Edirne, Turkey, or drowned him in Snagov Lake.

This icon is by the hand of Nicholas Papas. This icon is one of the "cloud of witnesses" at St. Philip's Antiochian Orthodox Church, Souderton, Pennsylvania.

Order #phn-69