Moldovița Monastery

Moldovița Monastery lies in the commune of Vatra Moldoviței, in the Moldovița valley, about 15 km from the commune of Vama. An older monastery stood here under the protection of Alexander the Good; its church collapsed at the end of the fifteenth century because of a landslide, and its ruins can be seen about 500 m from the present complex. In 1532 Prince Petru Rareș built a new church a little further down the valley, keeping the old dedication to the Annunciation, and surrounded it with defensive walls and towers. The architecture of the church combines Byzantine and Gothic elements, and its late Gothic details point to stonemasons from Transylvania. Moldovița and Humor are the last Moldavian churches built with an open porch, a hidden room above the burial chamber and Gothic windows and doors. Between 1610 and 1612 Bishop Efrem of Rădăuți built the clisiarniță (abbot's house) inside the enclosure, used as a residence, for keeping the church treasures and for a school of copyists. The interior and exterior painting was executed in 1537. Most specialists attribute it to painters led by Toma of Suceava, court painter to Petru Rareș, while the CIMEC museum guide attributes it to Marcu Zugravul. The exterior painting is best preserved on the south façade; its scenes include the Tree of Jesse and the Siege of Constantinople, and the west wall of the porch is entirely covered by the Last Judgement. The nave holds the votive portrait of Petru Rareș with his family. The complex is a listed historic monument (LMI code SV-II-a-A-05673): the church of 1532, the enclosure wall with its corner tower and the entrance bell tower from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the clisiarniță, the winter chapel and the south cells. The monastery museum, founded in 1934, displays embroideries, the princely chair of Petru Rareș, icons and old books. The church has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage site "Churches of Moldavia" since 1993.