The reasons that make me include so many churches in my must see
tips on Bucharest are two: first, many churches are among the oldest and most beautiful
buildings in the city and second, many of the churches have a very interesting history.
That is the case for example with the New St. Gheorghe Church - Biserica Sfantul Gheorghe Nou -
which was built between 1705-1706 and holds the tomb of its founder Constantin Brancoveanu.
Brancoveanu was Wallachia's ruler from 1688 - 1714 and his political and administrative sharpness
brought the country into a period of stability, economic prosperity and cultural boom.
Because of his anti-Turkish policy of forming alliances first with Austria and afterwards
with Russia, he was denounced to the Ottoman Porte, dethroned and brought to Istanbul.
There he was tortured by the Turks and he and and his four sons were beheaded on August
26, 1714. His wife had his corpse exhumed in secret and smuggled back into Romania. She
reburried him in secret in the church's court. Because she didn't want the Turks to find
out where Brancoveanu was burried she only marked the tomb with a stone, but she had a silver
votive light made on which the inscription reads that the New St. Gheorghe Church is the place
where voyevode Constantin Brancoveanu was burried.
