Galata Monastery

Galata Monastery stands at 4 Strada Mănăstirii, on Galata hill in south-western Iași, above the Nicolina valley. Petru Șchiopul's first monastery, known as Galata din vale or Galata de jos, was built on unsuitable ground and its walls collapsed soon after completion; a bell dated 1579 survives from it and stands today in the monastery grounds. The present church, dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord, was built on the hill around 1582-1584, during Petru Șchiopul's second reign, and served as a princely burial place: his first wife, Maria Amirali, and his children Despina and Vlad were buried here. In 1617 Prince Radu Mihnea dedicated the monastery to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, and Hlincea Monastery became its dependency. Fires in 1762, 1783, 1814 and 1822 destroyed in turn the church's painting and iconostasis, the princely house and most of the buildings. The present interior painting was executed in 1811 by Vasile Dubrovschi. After the secularisation of monastic estates in 1863 the Greek monks left, and from 1923 to 1950 the monastic buildings housed the Iași Central Penitentiary; under communism the church served only as a parish church. The church has a triconch plan with a closed porch, pronaos, burial chamber, nave and altar, and it is the first church in Moldavia built with two octagonal towers, raised over the pronaos and the nave. Its walls are supported by nine stepped buttresses, and the façades are divided by a central band into two registers of blind arcades. Only fragments survive of the votive portrait of Petru Șchiopul, his wife and his daughter. The crenellated stone enclosure wall, with a wooden sentry walk, was built in 1735 under Abbot Nectarie. The gate bell tower received an extra storey under Prince Mihail Sturdza (1834-1849) and was strengthened after the earthquake of 4 March 1977. The complex was restored between 1961 and 1971, when the princely house was partly rebuilt; today it holds the chapel of St James the Apostle, the monastery museum and a workshop for liturgical vestments and embroidery. Galata has been a convent since 1990, and the complex (church, princely house, bell tower and enclosure wall) is a historic monument, LMI code IS-II-m-A-03940.