Abstract
Based on the research of a prayer list found in an old church from a village in Moldavia, namely Zăpodeni, in Vaslui county, written in 1881 and subsequently supplemented, the present study identifies old, archaic family structures preserved in a Romanian rural world found at the heart of the modern civilization, a state similar to that of the Mediaeval Occident’s peasant communities, but also in other spaces located in the periphery of modernity. The cult for the dead was very powerful in the Romanian villages, where all the inhabitants believed that they were the descendants of a common ancestor and the organization of such communities was based on groups of kindred families. In this context, the inheritor of the house, regardless of being the son or the sonin-law, took over its funerary responsibilities, having the duty to commemorate the dead of the family, because in the archaic communities of different geographic areas, the house transcended the particular destinies of the individuals living in it.
Keywords: prayer list, church, family structures, mentalities, rural universe.
Cuvinte-cheie: pomelnic, biserică, structuri familiale, mentalităţi, univers rural.