Bucharest’s Churches (39) » Antim Church (1715) Bucharest
Antim Monastery bears the name of its founder. Antim was an outstanding personality: polyglot, talented craftsman, printer and books editor, bishop and later Mitropolitan of Wallachia. Of Georgian origin, he had an adventurous life, being taken into captivity by the Turks in his early years. In Constantinople he had the chance to learn a number of languages and various crafts before Prince Constantin Brancoveanu brought him to Wallachia where he developed a remarkable activity of printing liturgical books and eventually became the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
Shortly before being killed because of his outspoken position against the Turks, he founded of his own fortune one of the most wonderful monasteries in Bucharest, considered a peak of the early 18th century ecclesiastical art in Wallachia and a masterpiece of the Brancovan stye. The iconostasis in sculpted stone -unique in Romanian art- as well as the richly adorned portal are attributed to Antim himself.