The Dragomirna Monastery is12 km.from the ancient royal town of
The history of the monastery dates back to1602, when the small church in the graveyard was built and it was devoted to the saints Enoh, Ilie ( Elias ) and Ion (John ) the Teologist. In 1609 there was the sanctification the big church and the patron day was “The descending of the Holy Spirit”. Like no other foundation, Dragomirna the traditional inscription, so that the year in which it was built and the names of the fouders was revealed only after studying the documents of the time. The founders ware, the same as for the small church in the graveyard, the scholar, the artist and the bishop Anastasie Crimca, the chancellor Lupu Stroici and his brother Simion Stroici.
Born in Suceava the son of a trademan, Ioan Crimca, and of a princess Cristina, Anastasie became a monk a at the Putna monastery when he was young. There he would build up his personality of a high-rank priest, patriot, and scholar and, above all, of an artist, that showed throughout his whole life. He achieved his highest ranks in the Ortodox church and became, in 1608, the Bishop of Moldavia. During the summer of 1600, he swore faith to Mihai Viteazul, who entered the royal town of
Reading the inscription above the bell tower, one may find out that in 1627, during the rule of Miron Barnovschi, due to the frequent invasions of the Ottomans and Tatars, this house was endowed by the prince with defending walls, witch made it look like a fortress. On the four corners are narrow square towers. On the western and northern sides there are the cells, built between 1843 and 1846 and transformed on the occasion of the general reconstruction.
With the church on the right side of the entrance, there is a vaulted chamber, built in the Gothic stile, which is nowadays the Dragomirna museum.
Biserica mare are planul dreptunghiular, mult alungit, fara absi The big cuhrch has a rectangular schedule, wery much prologned, without the side apses and it impresses mostly by its magnificence. It seems to be a mysterious prayer from the bottom of one’s heart towards the holy ski. “Seeing it is a joiful surprise” wrote Nicolae Iorga.”It’s tall and narrow like a beautiful box with holy relics; it is an architectural jewel which decorates the ancient woods of Bucovina”.The church is mostly built of raw, unpolished stone, except for the pillars, which end with buttresses made of polished stone. At the windows, one may see Gothic like crossed wands and, on upper sides, under the cornice, there are two rows of arched curls. In the middle, there is a stone belt with three branches alternately interwoven. This belt, a symbol of the Holy Trinity, has also an allegoric message from the Bishop who lived to see the great Union of Mihai Viteazul : to urge the coming generation to guide the national and faith unity through the Holy Church, very height and narrow, entirely decorated gives a vertical sight to the whole building; the complete height, up to the Cross, is 42m. The sculpture of the tower represents a vast repertoire of ornamental motifs, geometrical and vegetal- which is uncommun for the epoches of Stefan the Great and Petru Rares.
The interior is made up of: a porch, pro-Nave, Nave and the Holy Altar. The porch is placed upper than the level of the churchyard; from the porch to the Holy Altar there are seven steps which increase the tendency of rising an create a difference among the chambers of the church. The element that draws the attention is the nervure net that covers the vaults, which is a western Gothic procedure, artistically modified by the Bishop himself. There is no surface on the vault, a single arch or an intersection of walls which is not underlined by the motif of the interwoven cord.
Dragomirna has not a chamber, there are five graves the porch and one in the pro-Nave, which may belong to the main founder, the faithful Bishop Anastasie Crimca’s. Dragomirna is decorated with splendid frescoes only on the Holy Altar and the Nave, no one knows whether the pro-Nave and the porch were painted or the painted got lost in time. The paintings were made by the masters Craciun, Ignat, Gligorie and Maties; these painted walls are another innovator element, which means a new conception of choosing and dealing with the themes, but also new means of painting, strictly connected with the iconographic and the miniature art.
At Dragomirna, the Bishop Anastasie Crimca started a miniaturists and calligrapher’s school which became in time “a last blossoming and glittering of the Romanian art of miniature”. There are still five manuscripts of the
As a centre of Christian and ancient culture in Romanian past, the Dragomirna Monastery guards with his walls a great part of the artistic treasure of this land, as a living testimony of the agitated Moldavian past, the love for beauty and skilfulness of the people of these places.
bravenet.com