Botiza Monastery

Botiza Monastery stands in the Sasului valley (Valea Sasului) in the village of Botiza, Botiza commune, near the place called Dealul mănăstirii (Monastery Hill), and belongs to the Vișeu deanery of the Romanian Orthodox Diocese of Maramureș and Sătmar. It is dedicated to the Transfiguration of the Lord. According to the diocese, no medieval document records a monastery at Botiza, and the place name probably refers to a former property of the monastery at Ieud. The foundation stone was laid on 14 August 1991 by Bishop Justinian Chira. Between 1992 and 1996, under the coordination of the Botiza parish priest Isidor Berbecaru, a wooden church and a monastic house were built. Monastic life began in 1996 with the hieromonk Atanasie Hotovi, who stayed until 2000. In 2001 it became a convent, when Mother Rafaela Rogojan was appointed abbess. The church's iconostasis was carved in 1996-1997 by Pamfil Niculescu of Pogoanele, Buzău County. The fresco painting was carried out in 2001-2003 by Ioan and Mariana Botiș of Vișeu de Sus, and the furniture in 2003-2004 by Dumitru Cojocaru of Humulești. The church was consecrated on 5 August 2007 by the auxiliary bishop Iustin Sigheteanul. The complex also includes the summer altar (2005), the gate with a bell tower (2006), the monastic house designed by the architect Dorel Cordoș, with the chapel of the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, painted in 2017 by Sorin Iosub, and the confessor's house (2013). In 2022 work began on a new summer altar. The abbess is the stavrophore nun Nectaria Aftan. The monastery is not a historic monument; the village of Botiza separately has the wooden church of St Paraskeva, a historic monument under LMI code MM-II-m-A-04528.