Bistrița Monastery

Bistrița Monastery stands in the village of Bistrița, Alexandru cel Bun commune, in the valley of the Bistrița river, about 8 km west of Piatra Neamț, below Cetățuia hill. It was founded by Prince Alexandru cel Bun (1400-1432), who built the church in the early fifteenth century and endowed the monastery with villages and estates; it is first documented in 1407. The monastery's diptych of commemorations, begun in 1407, calls Alexandru cel Bun "the true founder of this holy place" and is one of the oldest sources for the history of the princes and the Church in Moldavia. The monastery is regarded as the foundation of four princes. Stephen the Great built the bell tower in 1498, with a chapel of St John the New of Suceava that preserves fresco painting. Petru Rareș raised the gate tower with the chapel of St Nicholas and the enclosure wall between 1541 and 1546, after the original walls had been destroyed in 1538 by the army of Suleiman the Magnificent. In 1554 Alexandru Lăpușneanu rebuilt the church, dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God. Buried in the church are Alexandru cel Bun and his wife, Lady Ana, Alexandru, son of Stephen the Great, Chiajna, wife of Ștefan Lăcustă, and Metropolitan Anastasie of Suceava. The monastery keeps the icon of St Anne which, according to tradition, Lady Ana received from the Byzantine empress and gave to the monastery in 1407-1408. The almost square precinct is enclosed by a stone wall 4-6 metres high, rebuilt in 1776; in its north-west corner stands the princely house restored by Petru Rareș, and at the entrance a marble statue of Alexandru cel Bun, raised in 1982. The complex was extensively restored between 1967 and 1984. Bistrița Monastery is a class A historic monument (LMI code NT-II-a-A-10593), comprising the church of 1554, the bell tower of 1498, the gate tower of 1546, the Petru Rareș House, the eighteenth-century abbot's house and enclosure wall, and the ruins of the fifteenth-century princely houses. The monastery has a museum with a collection of medieval art.