Pocrov Skete

Pocrov Skete lies in a clearing below Mount Chiriacu, also known as Pahomie's Clearing, about 4 km south-west of Neamț Monastery and 17 km west of Târgu Neamț. Its founder was Pahomie (Penciu or Pencovschi), a Transylvanian from Bistrița-Năsăud County and abbot of Neamț Monastery, who spent 1702-1704 in Kyiv and on his return lived in a hut in this clearing. At the end of 1706 he was elected Bishop of Roman and was consecrated on 18 January 1707. After stepping down on 1 March 1714, he returned to the clearing with his disciples Sofronie, Mardarie, Lazăr, Dosoftei and Ioanichie. They felled trees, widened the clearing and used the timber to build the church, consecrated on 15 August 1714. Pahomie later left again for Kyiv, where he lived at the Pechersk Lavra until his death in 1724. The Romanian Orthodox Church canonized him as St Pahomie of Gledin, commemorated on 14 April. The skete has always been under the authority of Neamț Monastery, on whose land it stands. Those who trained here include Metropolitan Iacob Stamate (died 1803), raised by his uncle Lazăr Ursu, abbot of Pocrov and later of Neamț, and the young Nicolae Munteanu of Pipirig, the future Patriarch Nicodim. After 1761 many monks came here from Transylvania, having left after the Orthodox monasteries there were destroyed on the orders of General Bukow. Mihail Sadoveanu called the place "Paradise Clearing". The wooden church of the Protection of the Mother of God, dating from 1714, stands on a stone foundation and has three towers; the altar screen is decorated with carved wooden flowers. The skete complex is a historic monument (LMI code NT-II-a-B-10632), with the church listed separately (NT-II-m-B-10632.01). In 2010 a fire damaged the cells and several outbuildings, which were later rebuilt, after which the church was reconsecrated. The skete keeps old icons and crosses, books from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries and liturgical objects. The community consists of an abbot and a few monks.