Crasna Monastery

Crasna Monastery lies in the village of Schiulești, Izvoarele commune, Prahova County, in the forest beside the Crasna stream at the foot of Mount Ursoaia, about 50 km north of Ploiești. It was probably founded in the early eighteenth century by hermits from Văleni. The first documentary record, a deed of donation from 1745, mentions a hermitage of monks with a wooden church. The masonry church was begun in 1824 by the postelnic Constantin Potlogea as a parish church for the village of Băjenari, where people from the surrounding area had taken refuge after 1821. At its consecration, Bishop Chesarie of Buzău proposed re-establishing a monastic community, and the first abbot was the founder himself, who became a monk under the name Chelasie, gave his estate to the hermitage and built wooden cells. The church was painted in 1834 by Costache Eliadie. After the secularisation of monastic estates in 1864, the hermitage declined and was placed under Cheia Monastery. In 1967, with the blessing of Patriarch Justinian Marina, a group of monks from Slănic Monastery in Argeș County, including Nicodim Dimulescu, was sent to restore the hermitage, which then had no monks and was in poor condition. Under Nicodim Dimulescu as abbot (1999-2010), the church of the Holy Emperors Constantine and Helena was restored and a new church dedicated to the Protection of the Mother of God was built, together with a chapel of the Romanian Saints, a summer altar dedicated to the Prophet Elijah, cells, a guesthouse and a refectory. Six members of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church came from the Crasna community. Crasna Hermitage is a class A historic monument (PH-II-a-A-16607) comprising the church of the Holy Emperors Constantine and Helena, the bell tower and the well, all dated 1824-1828. The monastery is inhabited by monks, and its main feast is celebrated on 21 May.