Feleacu Monastery

Feleacu is the seat of Feleacu commune, about 7 km south of Cluj-Napoca, on the ridge of Feleac Hill, at an average altitude of 711 m. The old church of St. Paraskeva stands in the village centre, and the monastery buildings are about 120 m away. The village was founded in 1366, when King Louis I approved the settlement here of Romanian families charged with guarding the road between Cluj and Turda through the Feleac Forest. In the late 15th and the first half of the 16th century, Feleacu was an Orthodox episcopal seat: the hierarchs Marcu, Daniil (around 1488) and Petru (1538) are recorded. The stone church, dated 1486 by the List of Historic Monuments, is a Gothic hall church with two rib-vaulted bays and a polygonal apse. It has been attributed to Stephen the Great because of its similarity to the church at Vad, but the medievalist Adrian Andrei Rusu considers this unfounded for lack of documents. After 1700 the church became Greek Catholic, and after 1948 it became Orthodox again. In 1925 it was restored to plans by the architect Károly Kós, when the bell tower was added. Today visitors can see the church, with 18th-century murals and icons by the painter Nistor of Feleacu, and the nearby Orthodox monastery, re-established in the early 1990s. In front of the church stands a bust of Stephen the Great, erected in the late 19th century at the expense of Gheorghe Sion. The village lies on the E60 (DN1) road between Cluj-Napoca and Turda. The church is a historic monument of national importance (LMI CJ-II-m-A-07613, "St. Paraskeva Church of the Bishopric of Feleac and Vad") and belongs to the Orthodox Archdiocese of Vad, Feleac and Cluj. Did you know that today's name of the Orthodox Archdiocese of Vad, Feleac and Cluj preserves the memory of the old episcopal seat at Feleacu? It was also at Feleacu that a Gospel book was copied in 1488 on the orders of Archbishop Daniil, who resided here.