Zamfira Monastery

Zamfira Monastery lies in the meadow on the left bank of the Teleajen river, on the road running parallel to the DN1A, about 15 km from Ploiești, next to the village of Zamfira in Lipănești commune. It is a convent dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord and to St Nephon (Sfântul Ierarh Nifon). The ensemble is a category A historic monument (LMI code PH-II-a-A-16860), and its enclosure is a quadrilateral about 170 m long on the east-west side and about 130 m on the other sides. The old Holy Trinity church, in the cemetery outside the enclosure, was probably begun between 1721 and 1730, during the second reign of Nicolae Mavrocordat, by Zamfira Apostoli, widow of the merchant Manoil (Mano) Apostoli. After her death the work was finished by her daughter-in-law Smaranda, daughter of the aga Ion Bălăceanu, and the church was completed and brought into use on 29 July 1743. A document of 1776 mentions an abbot, a sign that the church had become a skete for monks. After 1780 it was a dependency of the bishopric of Târgoviște, and in 1832 it appears as a skete for nuns dedicated to Câmpulung Monastery. The earthquakes of 1802 and 1838 left the church in ruins, and Metropolitan Nifon (1850-1875) built a new, larger church about 400 paces to the north (the LMI dates it 1855-1857; Romanian Wikipedia gives completion in 1858). Its murals were painted in 1856-1857 by Nicolae Grigorescu, at the start of his career. The old church became a chapel, and its present interior painting, in Neo-Byzantine style, was completed in 1982 by the painter Mihail-Bogdan Mochulschi. The earthquakes of 1940 and 1977 damaged the buildings, and the ensemble was restored between 1977 and 1982 under Patriarch Iustin Moisescu. Besides the large church (PH-II-m-A-16860.01) and the Holy Trinity church (PH-II-m-A-16860.02), the cellar of the former manor house, from the seventeenth century and now used as a store, survives across the road from the old church (PH-II-m-A-16859).