Voroneț Monastery

Voroneț Monastery lies in the valley of the Voroneț river, south of Gura Humorului, in the locality of Voroneț, now part of the town, about 4 km from the centre. The church was built on the site of an earlier wooden church. Its inscription records that Stephen the Great began it on 26 May 1488, dedicated to the Holy Great Martyr George, and completed it in the same year, on 14 September. It has a trefoil plan with a tower over the nave and is among the few churches of northern Moldavia that largely keep their original form. The interior painting of the sanctuary and nave dates from the time of Stephen the Great, most probably from 1496-1497, and includes the prince's votive portrait. In 1547 Metropolitan Grigore Roșca added an enclosed porch on the west side, its west wall left without any opening, and had all the façades painted; his inscription records that the work was finished on 14 September 1547, in the days of Prince Iliaș Rareș. The author of the exterior painting has not been established with certainty; the inscriptions "Marcu the pristav" and "Ionasko Kiril" have been read by some researchers as signatures. The west façade is entirely covered by the Last Judgement, arranged in four registers, with the river of fire, the weighing of deeds and angels blowing alphorns (buciume). The backgrounds are of azurite, a copper-based mineral pigment that has turned in places into green malachite under the effect of damp; this shade is known as "Voroneț blue", and the church has been nicknamed "the Sistine Chapel of the East". On the north façade the glazed ceramic discs of the original decoration can still be seen. The narthex holds the tomb of Daniil the Hermit, and the porch that of Metropolitan Grigore Roșca. After the Habsburg annexation of Bukovina, monastic life ceased after 1785 and the church served as a parish church. In 1991 the monastery resumed its activity, with a community of nuns. The complex is a listed historic monument (LMI code SV-II-a-A-05675): the church, the ruins of the cells, the bell tower and the enclosure wall. The church has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage site "Churches of Moldavia" since 1993.