Our Postdoctoral Fellow for 2025-2026

The Diocesan Academy of Theological and Historical Studies of the Holy Meteora is pleased to announce that Dr. Anca Mihaela Sapovici, alumna and doctoral graduate of the University of Bucharest, has been selected as our postdoctoral research fellow for the academic year 2025–2026. Her research project is titled “Edition of the Eight Canons for All Saints by Matthew of Myra from the Varlaam Manuscript 134”. Dr. Sapovici completed her undergraduate studies in Romanian and French Philology at the University of Bucharest. She continued her academic formation with postgraduate studies in Romanian Philology at the same institution (2004) and in Byzantine Philology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (2011). She defended her doctoral dissertation titled “Metropolitan Matthew of Myra: Festal, Historiographical, Hymnographic, and Hagiographical Work” in 2023.

Throughout her academic career, Dr. Sapovici has been awarded several prestigious scholarships and fellowships, including those from the Onassis Foundation and the State Scholarships Foundation of Greece (IKY). She has participated in numerous research programs, received a competitive grant from the Romanian Academy, and earned two notable academic distinctions. Dr. Sapovici has worked a philologist at the Hellenic School of Bucharest from 2015 to 2024. She currently holds the position of Senior Researcher at the Institute of Linguistics “Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” of the Romanian Academy. Her scholarly interests focus on the study and critical analysis of hagiographical texts of the post-Byzantine period.

Project Summary:

Dr. Sapovici’s project is of significant academic value and scholarly merit, especially for the philological and liturgical traditions of the Holy Meteora. Her research is centered on the edition of a set of canons composed by Matthew of Myra in 1606, written in response to a request from his spiritual disciple, Hieromonk Arsenios, the abbot of Varlaam Monastery. The critical edition and analysis of these canons will make a substantial contribution to the understanding of Matthew’s hymnographic legacy, as well as his relationship with the monastic community of Meteora. Additionally, this project is expected to enrich current scholarship on the spiritual and liturgical life at the Holy Meteora, an area that remains underexplored in contemporary academic research.

Image credit: Fol. 26a, cod. 34, Varlaam Monastery.