Manastirea Cozia

Bathing its historical walls in "waves upon waves of billowing crests", there where the Olt gathers its waters after they have broken through the steep rocks - of the pass in the mountain which gave its name to the monastery, Cozia (like its sister Tismana, farther off, and like the neighboring monasteries of Turnu and Stânişoara), is set in one of the most picturesque of the many carpathian landscapes which are the pride of Oltenia, this immense repository of such monuments.
 
This natural setting is associated with an original architectural and decorative diversity, with one of the richest collection of old art and scholarly books, and, at the same time, with the indefatigable achievements of great cultural and national scopes carried out on both sides of the Carpathians for over five centuries; all harmoniously embedded in the unique magnificence of these legendary sites…

Ancient was built between 1386 and 1388 in a region which, at that time, was difficult to reach, but where walnut trees easily grew; the name of the place itself derives from the Petcheneg-Cumanian term "coz" = walnut, which became Cozia = nut grove. On the grounds of other philological information, this interpretation of the name seems more reliable than others which made it derive from the Slavonic "koz" = goat. However, at the bottom, both names correspond to the same local features; the criterion used differing according to circumstances and to either botanical or zoological occupation.
   There is no doubt that this Voievode, depicted by Grigore Alexandrescu in the poem "Mircea at Cozia" (a poem which contains the verse quoted above), whose memory will last as long as the monument exists, "a knight of faith… as his sword and armour show him", built this sanctuary in this secluded spot non only for the beauty itself of its surroundings, but certainly also for military and strategic reasons, as the monastery was, at the beginning, fortified like a stronghold, In the decision to choose this place, he may well have been prompted by the scholar monk Nicodem from Tismana who, even before this sainted dwelling, that jutted above a waterfall at the foot of the Stârmina, had created Vodiţa and - on the Transylvanian side of the Carpathians, - the monastery of Prislop. The same Nicodem was confessor to the Voievode ever since the latter was young and (according to certain documents) he was "Mircea's counselor in matters of religion", the proof of this being his very image painted in the narthex of Cozia, as well as the fact that the monastery’s first superior was one of his apprentices.(TM)  

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