LAȚCU VODĂ. - Prince of Moldavia, son of the founder of the principality itself, Bogdan Vodă. He ascended the throne in 1365, d. in 1373. Urban V was referring to L. when he wrote from Montefiascone on 24 July 1370 to the archbishop of Prague and the bishops of Bratislava and Kraków that «robil vir Latco, dux Moldaviae» had communicated to him his desire to become a Catholic together with his people and to obtain that one of his towns, Seret, receive the name and dignity of a city and a bishop; the Pope charged the aforesaid prelates to investigate and, if the answer was affirmative, to build a cathedral at Seret, while the country was to remain a duchy dependent directly on the Holy See. In another letter the Pope directed that the same three bishops should also investigate L.'s candidate for the new episcopal see, Andrea of Kraków, and ordain him; which was done.
Andrea was a Franciscan religious of noble family, formerly confessor of Elizabeth, sister of King Casimir of Poland. It seems that he never came to Moldavia and that the cathedral was not built either. It is certain that not only the people, but even the wife and daughter of the prince, Anna and Anastasia, did not follow the example of L., to whom Pope Gregory XI wrote on 25 Jan. 1372 not to let himself be dragged along by his wife, who remained obstinate in her errors, but also not to separate from her, and that their children were to be recognized as legitimate.
L. was buried in the "Orthodox" church of Radauti, beside his father who had had it built.
Bibliography2 works
Pietre Vălimăreanu