Sfinţirea mănăstirii Argeş şi cruciada antiotomană
La consécration du monastère Argeş et la croisade anti-ottomane

Summary/Abstract: At the beginning of the sixteenth century the increasing Ottoman power was viewed as an imminent threat by the main European political actors. Selim I’s victories over Safavid Persia (1514) and over the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt (1517) determined Pope Leo X and Emperor Maximilian to plan a “defensive” crusade, in which the lords of Wallachia and Moldavia were ascribed a rather meagre role. It is in this context that the Wallachian lord, Neagoe Basarab negotiated with Rome, on his own terms, his involvement in the anticipated crusade. At that moment, Neagoe Basarab was the main symbol of the so-called “Orthodox crusade”, as his voice was representative for the Eastern Christianity. Analysed from this perspective, the hastened consecration of the Argeş monastery that took place in 1517, before the church itself was completed, has a different signification. Thus, the consecration was attended not only by the entire laic and ecclesiastic Wallachian elite, but also by the Constantinople patriarch, Theolipt, by four Greek archbishops from the Balkans and by the envoys of the Athonite community. This article aims to argue that such an exceptional assembly could only be justified by an outstanding objective: the coronation of Neagoe as a Byzantine Emperor during a nocturnal, secret ceremony.

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