Varlaam was Metropolitan of Moldavia in the seventeenth century and the editor of the Cazania of 1643, the first book printed in the Romanian language in Moldavia. A monk of Secu Monastery who rose to lead the Moldavian Church, he is remembered both as a hierarch and as one of the formative figures in the development of literary Romanian. The Romanian Orthodox Church glorified him in 2007, and he is commemorated on August 30.
By tradition he was born around 1580 — some sources place his birth around 1590 — in the region of Neamt to a family of free peasants, and received the baptismal name Basil (Vasile). He learned Slavonic and Greek as a young man at the Zosim Skete in the Secu valley, and entered monastic life at Secu Monastery, taking the name Varlaam (Barlaam). His scholarship was recognized early: he was made igumen (abbot), and in 1618 he translated the Ladder of Saint John Climacus, among the first writings of the Church Fathers rendered into Romanian.
Raised to the rank of archimandrite, Varlaam served as an adviser to Prince Miron Barnovschi and became igumen of Dragomirna Monastery in 1628. In 1632 he was called to the Metropolitanate of Moldavia, which he led until 1653. During his tenure, in close cooperation with Prince Vasile Lupu, he founded the first Romanian printing house in Moldavia, established in 1640 at the Three Holy Hierarchs Monastery in Iasi, and took part in the Synod of Iasi of 1642, which examined the Orthodox Confession of Faith.
After Vasile Lupu lost power in 1653, Varlaam withdrew to Secu Monastery, where he reposed in 1657. His chief literary monuments — the Cazania and a published Response to the Calvinist Catechism (1645) — circulated widely among Romanian-speaking communities on both sides of the Carpathians, giving him a lasting place in Romanian ecclesiastical and cultural history.
