Archimandrite Bartholomew Mazereanu was one of the pillars of Putna Monastery during the second half of the 18th century. A spiritual son of Metropolitan Anthony, he was the main collaborator of Saint Jacob of Putna in his activity as a new founder of the Putna Monastery.

Endowed with many qualities, he was sent on missions across the border for the benefit of the country or of his monastery.

He was hegumen of the Putna Monastery as well as of other monasteries such as Solca (1768–1774) and Solnoveski in Russia (1748–1754). Archimandrite Bartholomew excelled in translating church books and books for spiritual edification, in writing chronicles, registers, diptychs, and history; he was one of the important scholars of his time.

Born about 1720 in the region of Câmpulung, Archimandrite Bartholomew’s mother’s name was Sanda, and his father became a monk, taking the name of Gennadius. He had two brothers – priest Theodore and Nicholas – and two sisters – Mary and nun Helen. One of his uncles was a monk, Joannicius. Among his relatives who became monks at Putna are Hieroschemamonk Michael Mazereanu and Isaiah Baloșescu, the future bishop of Bukovina.

Bartholomew Mazereanu entered monastic life at Putna Monastery and was tonsured rassophore at the age of 13, in 1733. He was ordained a deacon by the hands of Metropolitan Anthony. In 1743, he was tonsured stavrophore and ordained a hieromonk.

Following the Russo‑Turkish war from 1735–1739, Metropolitan Anthony had to leave Moldavia in 1740 and go to Russia. Together with him also went Hieromonk Bartholomew. On October 1, 1748, Bartholomew became hegumen at the Solnoveski Monastery. It was in Russia that he must have learned or perfected his knowledge of Slavonic.

After six years, in 1754, Saint Jacob of Putna – Metropolitan of Moldova at the time – recalled Bartholomew Mazereanu in order to translate books from Slavonic into Romanian. He translated and wrote dozens of works, which nurtured spiritually many of the monks of his time, helped better organize church services, and were an important contribution to the development of the Romanian literary language.

The following year, on August 15, 1755, Bartholomew was ordained archimandrite, and the next day Holy Metropolitan Jacob appointed him hegumen of the Putna Monastery.

Besides caring for the monasteries where he was hegumen, Archimandrite Bartholomew watched closely “the old monastery,” the one around the wooden church of Prince Dragoș. In his testament he briefly mentions what he had accomplished there: he put the roof on the church, he planted an orchard “with great expenses,” he made a new iconostasis, he enlarged the church, he made a few stacidias, he put a fence around the property, built cells for the hegumen and a bakery for the prosphora, and he built two schools – a larger and a smaller one, under the same roof.

He reposed in the Lord about year 1780 and was buried at the Putna Monastery, as he had requested in his testament.

A monk with deep humility, his figure shines together with Saint Jacob and our Venerable Fathers Silas, Paisius, Nathan, and Arsenius, with Metropolitan Anthony and the other monks who lived a godly life in the 18th century.