Unlike his father, Antioch did not oppose the interests of Poland. He also laid the groundwork for his brother's anti-Turkish alliance with Peter the Great's Russian Empire, which began expanding southward following the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz. Despite Cantemir's high taxes, particularly during his second reign, he was a broadly popular figure and viewed as a just and kind ruler. Inspired by Chrysanthus, the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, he established the Princely Academy in his capital Iaşi in 1707.
