The Bessarabian Theological School played a fundamental role in the cultural development of Bessarabia, becoming a component part of a complex social-historical process. The first Metropolitan of Bessarabia Gavriil Banulescu-Bodoni was the founder of the Theological School of Bessarabia. In the year of the establishment of the Archdiocese of Chisinau and Hotin the vast majority of the population in the region was illiterate. He established the first school in the region, the Theological Seminary in Chisinau in order to give the eparchy trained clerical cadres, able to contribute to the mass training of the population between the Dniester and the Prut. The Seminar was set up in compliance with Movilene Academy model, the mother of all Eastern Orthodox schools. The Theological Seminary in Chisinau, created based on the model of the Movilene School, in accordance with the canons of Russian theological law of the XVIII-th century, was the first higher educational institution in Bessarabia.