Neamț Monastery

In the thesaurus of valuable objects of the national historic and artisticcultural heritage, the Neamț Monastery, also named the “Jerusalem of the Romanian Orthodoxy”, has a very special place, its whole existence offering it a legendary aura and the features of a center of spiritual life.

The monastery is documentary established in 1407, but the roots of the monastic activities go back until the XII century. From the old constructions that existed within the walls of the Neamț Monastery you can find nowadays only the church of the Moldavian ruler, Stephen the Great and the inferior part of the bell tower built by Alexander the Good, another Moldavian ruler.

The buildings that are currently situated in the monastery precinct date back from the period of the XVIII-XIX centuries. The Saint George church was built between 1958 and 1961, between the sanctums from the east side, on the place where Peter Muşat once raised the first church made of stone. The Neamț Monastery is the most interesting and the most representative monument of the architecture of that time, both in terms of the plan and interior structure, and of the manner of decorating the facades. The architecture and the exterior decorative plaster add to the monument a spectacular grandeur.

From among the monastery’s attractions, the circular Holy Water Recipient from the front of the Neamț Monastery is impressive; here, the water is sanctified on the titular saint’s day. In the church there is the miracle-maker Icon of the Mother of God, painted in 665 in Israel, which the Moldavian ruler Alexander the Good received as a gift from the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Paleologul.

The settlement also owns the oldest monastic library with 18,000 volumes, and thus having a special contribution to the development of the medieval Romanian culture and art.

Ever since the beginning of the XV century the activity of calligraphic handwriting and artistic decoration of the religious texts was dominated by the wellknown monk Gavriil Uric, and in the second half of the same century, by Theodore Marisescul, Ghervasie Ioanichie, Nicodim and Palade, the apprentices of Gavriil Uric. The indubitable documents certify the fact that at the Neamț Monastery precious metals were processed and thus making religious objects; here, painters, wood and stone sculptors were educated. At the Art Museum it is kept the famous Epitaph, which belonged until 1916 to the Neamț Monastery, made in 1437 by the hegumen Silvan.