Valentinian

Valentinian was bishop and metropolitan of Tomis in the sixth century, the last shepherd of Dobruja known from the sources before the great migrations of 602. He is named in the Romanian Paterikon and venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; the sources available to us give no day of commemoration.

His name points to a Latin, that is Daco-⁠Roman, origin, and the Paterikon supposes that he was born and formed in the diocese of Tomis, of which he became shepherd around the middle of the century. His correspondence with Pope Vigilius survives. The pope answered him on 18 March 550, addressing him as bishop of Tomis in the province of Scythia and assuring him that he had written nothing against the four ecumenical councils, in the dispute over the Three Chapters, that is the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa, condemned by Emperor Justinian. The pope invited him to Constantinople; Valentinian did not take up the invitation, for reasons unknown, and did not attend the Fifth Ecumenical Council of 553 either.

The Paterikon holds that under him the Church of Dobruja lived one of the most fruitful ages in the formation of the Romanian people, with churches and priests in every village and renowned monastic settlements. North of the Danube there were communities of monks in the sub-⁠Carpathian zone, above all in the Buzău Mountains and Vrancea, and a see in the land of Vrancea is even supposed, out of which the later bishopric of Milcovia would develop.

The year of his repose is not known with precision.