Soveja Monastery

Soveja Monastery is located on DN2L, at the entrance to the resort of Soveja, Vrancea County, in the Valea Șușiței area, approximately 80 km from Focșani. Built by Matei Basarab, ruler of Wallachia, in 1645 as an act of thanksgiving to God for his reconciliation with Vasile Lupu of Moldavia, the monastery has a remarkable distinction: it was erected by a Wallachian ruler on Moldavian soil, with the explicit consent of Vasile Lupu. The old votive inscription testifies: "this divine temple was raised... outside the borders of our country, in the Moldavian land of Vrancea". At the same time, Vasile Lupu was building Biserica Stelea in Târgoviște on Wallachian soil — an unprecedented exchange of foundations in Romanian history, recorded in historiography as a "model of reconciliation between the Moldavian and Wallachian brethren" and regarded as a symbolic precursor of the Union of the Principalities. The monastery is also known by the name "Dobromira", meaning "good peace" in Old Church Slavonic. Over the centuries it was severely damaged by the earthquakes of 1802, 1940 and 1977, and was subsequently demolished. The present monastery was established in 2001 as a convent of nuns, with the feast day of the Holy Emperors Constantine and Helena, and was consecrated in 2005. A remarkable literary episode: in 1846, the writer Alecu Russo, associated with the 1848 generation, was exiled to Soveja Monastery on account of political allusions in a theatrical play. During his exile he discovered and transcribed the ballad Miorița — a version passed down orally by shepherds from the Vrancea area — which he gave to Vasile Alecsandri for publication. Without Russo's exile at Soveja, the ballad Miorița might have remained unknown to Romanian literary culture. The monastery is reached via DN2L from Focșani, through Mărășești and Panciu.