Bărboi Church, Iași

Bărboi Church stands at 12 Stradela Bărboi in Iași and is dedicated to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. The first church was built in 1613-1615 by Ursu Bărboi, grand vornic of Lower Moldavia, and in 1669 his heirs turned it into a monastery dedicated to Vatopedi Monastery on Mount Athos. The old church, damaged in the first half of the nineteenth century, was replaced by the present building, begun in 1841 and completed in 1843-1844. The work was supported by the logothete Dimitrie Sturdza and his wife Elena, with financial help from Vatopedi and through the efforts of Metropolitan Grigorie Irinupoleos; the architect was Andrei Caridi. After the 1863 law secularising monastic estates, the monastery was dissolved and the church became a parish church. The writer Ion Creangă served here as a deacon from 1863 to 1865. The church is built of alternating courses of stone and brick, has a Greek-cross plan (the only one of its kind in Iași), a central dome and four smaller towers, and is entered through an open porch with Doric columns. The interior is divided into three aisles by two rows of columns, and the carved and gilded wooden iconostasis dates from the nineteenth century. The church holds the tomb of Prince Ioniță Sandu Sturdza, the first native ruler after the Phanariot period, and of other members of the Sturdza family, as well as a memorial plaque to the poet Alecu Russo. The bell tower dates from the reign of Grigore II Ghica (1726-1733). The church was restored in 1980-1988 and reconsecrated in 1988 by Patriarch Teoctist. The ensemble of the former Bărboi Monastery (the church, the former abbot's house, now the parish house, the bell tower, the enclosure wall, the fountain and the monument of the Sfânta Vineri church) is a class A historic monument, code IS-II-a-A-03730.