​Even for those who are not very interested in these things, it must be said, however, that Romania has never had, and does not lack, kings.

We even have a second royal family. Obviously, here you can get into the question of succession law, that is, whether there can be competition with the current royal family. The opinion of many – yes, because the competition comes from a much older family. This, as you guessed, is, of course, the Kuz family.

A royal family with many descendants, apparently at least twenty at this point. Florin, Monika, Bohdan or Tudor are just some of their names – it is worth noting that they did not change them to foreign ones. One of them, a great-grandson, has a business in the Bihor district. Others, on the line of the ruler’s cousin, long ago chose to live in Argentina, Chile or Germany. In fact, the diaspora also calls the descendants of Cuza the second royal family of Romania.

Kuza and the Church

But this is not what we want to talk about today, although the topic deserves attention, but about an almost funny curiosity that we find right in the center of the capital. More precisely, on Mitropolska Gora.

And a huge statue of the ruler Alexander Ioan Kuza (we will return to him later). And to say the least, it is surprising that the most important statue of the capital, which honors the memory of the one who united the principalities, stands on the hill.

Because Alexander Ioan Cusa was none other than the one who secularized the monastic assets. A secularizer, so to speak. Thus, four years after the achievement of the union, the ruler managed to transfer the church lands into state ownership. And, how nice, this land made up about a quarter of the land fund of the country.

The fact that many voivodes and princes cheerfully donated to monasteries, after almost every battle, more or less ended in victory, Kuza took as a single law. Orthodoxy took away almost everything. And when the Metropolitan of Moldova, Sofroni Miklescu, protested against his measures, Cuza sent him to early retirement. Therefore, it seems inappropriate to open this statue in the BOR estate in the auspicious year of 2004.

Cusa was more cunning with his reforms than one might think

And yet, everything is not by chance. With his reforms, Cusa was more cunning than one might think, and today’s Orthodox Church can manage happily and without a desperate run for fertilizers or irrigation to replace the delayed rains from the Lord.

First, the first ruler of the Romanian lands decided that religious services should be held exclusively in the Romanian language. So at that time peasants did not go to Paris yet, and Spanish was not yet popular.

Then a decision was made to switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. Here the interests were deeper, do you understand how many crimes are recorded? What a title of glory it would take for today’s government to do the same! Now we are in 2022, tomorrow in 2030: this crime, for which the author is ready, can no longer be punished. Or, even better: today we are in 2022, tomorrow in 2021! This means that the crime was not even committed.

Kuza did not stop there

Okay, let’s move on. Kuza did not stop there either. Thus, civil documents, which until then belonged to the Church, came under the responsibility of the town hall, while the secretary took over the clerk’s work, and the priest was replaced by the mayor himself. The income of the priests was to provide the town halls, and the state was to take care of the churches.

In addition, the monastic staff was to be recruited through the Ministry of Cults, and monastic life was to be financed by the state. Let’s talk among ourselves, and now real sinecures can be found only in the state. Ultimately, Cusa founded the central synodal authority, i.e. today’s BOR.

The icing on the cake (!) was the law according to which metropolitans and bishops were to be appointed only by the Bishop, after the presentation of the Minister of Religions, after a debate in the Council of Ministers. In other words, the Church became completely dependent on the state. In this way the government controlled not only four million people, but four million souls. A very useful thing, often for those in power, as can be seen today. A person votes primarily with his soul. That’s it, in the end. Believe it or not, Nicolae Iorga himself condemned the reform of Cuza, who he accused of having led to the religious decline of Romania thanks to him and his Pasoptist generation.

Of course, some comments remained and today, perhaps the most important website of Orthodoxy, crestinortodox.ro, draws an analogy between the location of the statue on the Metropolia Hill and the Caracalla prison on Libertății Street. Insult or irony, it doesn’t matter now. The coexistence of politics and religion again turned out to be quite functional according to the principle of the Pluvian bird. Every crocodile needs its dentist, because without sharp fangs you risk not getting drunk easily.

And in general, a state where religion is subordinate to politics is better than the other way around. So the statue, after all, seems to be in place. By the way, fate often turned out to be ironic. Cusa himself, according to those who were close to him, was a humorous character (exaggeratedly humorous, according to some), bold, ironic and, I’m not sure about the last source, a little frivolous. He forgot, or pretended to forget, requests that did not suit him, until finally, like an old man who hears but pretends to be deaf, he remained at his work.

A prank with Dr. Drakken, Kuza’s friend

That’s how I would end today, briefly talking about the entourage of the ruler, a part of which, if my memory serves me correctly, was a certain Drakken. A doctor of Austrian origin, he became very popular in Bucharest. I want to tell you the story because if we keep talking about the irony of the statue, it would be a shame to miss it.

Therefore, sick or not, every dignitary felt the need to pass through the office of Dr. Draken, the ruler’s friend, in those days, so that the envy of his fellow guildmates grew day by day. But the Austrian, young and two meters tall, like all oaks in Austria, did not even care. That was until the board of doctors met in great secrecy and decided that the most qualified of them should go to the Venetian scientist and compromise him. With witnesses, obviously.

That same day, around noon, the guild delegate and his friends settled in Draken’s house. He received, and the patient-doctor handed him a kernel:

“Mr. Draken, yes, yes, I am very ill.” And I don’t know what to do, I’m sorry, but no matter how hard you try to heal me, I don’t think you can. It’s because I can’t tell you what I have and whether you healed me after that. I’m a liar, Mr. Draken!

– Um, His Highness the scientist would answer him. However, I can find a cure for your disease. But I need time to prepare it. Here’s how we do it, come in the evening to check it’s ready.

Of course, at the end of the day, the lying patient settled in the doctor’s office, followed by his henchmen.

“Here’s the medicine,” Drakken said, handing it himself.

The patient chewed for a moment, swallowed bravely, then opened his eyes wide and shouted:

– Monsignor, but this is pure shit, I’m sorry!!!

Drakken nodded with a laugh and replied,

– See? You took only one portion and started telling the truth.

Drakken was a good friend of Lord Kuza. And this anecdote seems to be true. Or, who knows… You’ve probably heard it somewhere before. There are still many anecdotes about Kuzu himself. But the most important thing is there, on Mitropolska Gora.

Photo source: Dreamstime.com