Justinian I ( /dʒʌˈstɪniən/) (Latin: Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Iustinianus Augustus, Ancient Greek: Φλάβιος Πέτρος Σαββάτιος Ἰουστινιανός) (c. 482 – 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.
One of the most important figures of Late Antiquity and the last Roman Emperor to speak Latin as a first language, Justinian's rule constitutes a distinct epoch in the history of the Eastern Roman Empire. The impact of his administration extended far beyond the boundaries of his time and domain. Justinian's reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii, or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was expressed by the partial recovery of the territories of the defunct Western Roman Empire. His general Belisarius swiftly conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa, extending Roman control to the Atlantic Ocean. Subsequently Belisarius, Narses, and other generals conquered the Ostrogothic Kingdom, restoring Dalmatia, Sicily, Italy, and Rome to the Empire after more than half a century of barbarian control.
Bartolomeu Anania (March 18, 1921 – January 31, 2011), born Valeriu Anania, was a Romanian Orthodox bishop, translator, writer and poet; he was the Metropolitan of Cluj, Alba, Crişana and Maramureş.
Anania was born as Valeriu in Glăvile, Vâlcea County, to Vasile Anania and his wife Ana, the daughter of a priest. He attended primary school in Glăvile and entered the Bucharest Central Seminary in 1933.
At the age of 15, Anania, while a student at the Seminary, joined the local organization of the Cross Brotherhood (Frăţia de Cruce), part of the Iron Guard, being introduced to it by an older student. However, he claimed that within the Cross Brotherhood at the Seminary, politics was not discussed and the group was not anti-Semitic, like the rest of the Iron Guard. Anania graduated the Seminary in 1941. That year, he spent three weeks under arrest, being accused of participating at the funeral of a member of the Iron Guard.
In 1942, he was tonsured a monk at the Antim Monastery, graduating from Bucharest's Mihai Viteazul High School the following year. In 1944, Hierodeacon Bartolomeu began studying Medicine and at the Cluj Conservatory, but he was expelled after organizing a student strike against the new communist government of Petru Groza. Afterwards, he continued his studies at the Theology Faculty of the University of Bucharest and the Theological Academies of Cluj and Sibiu, receiving his degree in the latter city in 1948.
Nicolae Steinhardt (born Nicu-Aurelian Steinhardt; July 12, 1912 - March 29, 1989) was a Romanian writer, Orthodox hermit and father confessor.
He was born in Pantelimon commune, near Bucharest, from a Jewish father and a Romanian mother. His father was an engineer, architect and decorated World War I participant (following the Battle of Mărăşti). Due to his lineage from his father side, he was to be subject to anti-semitic discrimination during the fascist governments of World War II Romania.
Between 1919 and 1929, he attended Spiru Haret primary school and college in Bucharest, where, despite his background, he was taught Religion by a Christian priest. His talent for writing was first noticed when he joined the Sburătorul literary circle.
In 1934, he took his license diploma from the Law and Literature School of the University of Bucharest. Under the pseudonym Antisthius, one of La Bruyères Caractères, he published his first volum, the parodic novel În genul lui Cioran, Noica, Eliade... ("In the Manner of Cioran, Noica, Eliade..."). In 1936, he took his PhD in Constitutional Law, and between 1937 and 1938, he traveled to Switzerland, Austria, France and England.
Justinian II (Greek: Ιουστινιανός Β΄, Ioustinianos II, Latin: Justinianus II) (669 – 11 December 711), surnamed the Rhinotmetos or Rhinotmetus (ὁ Ῥινότμητος, "the slit-nosed"), was the last Byzantine Emperor of the Heraclian Dynasty, reigning from 685 to 695 and again from 705 to 711. Justinian II was an ambitious and passionate ruler who was keen to restore the Empire to its former glories, but he responded poorly to any opposition to his will and lacked the finesse of his father, Constantine IV. Consequently, he generated enormous opposition to his reign, and it resulted in his deposition in 695 in a popular uprising, and he only returned to the throne in 705 with the help of a Bulgar and Slav army. His second reign was even more despotic than the first, and it too saw his eventual overthrow in 711, abandoned by his army who turned on him before killing him.
Justinian II was the eldest son of Emperor Constantine IV and Anastasia. His father raised him to the throne as joint emperor in 681 on the fall of his uncles Heraclius and Tiberius. In 685, at the age of sixteen, Justinian II succeeded his father as sole emperor.