Voronet Monastery - Bucovina

Voronet is considered by many to be the "Sixtine Chapel of the East", due to its magnificent frescoes placed on the West wall. These feature an intense shade of blue known in Romania as , "Voronet Blue", a colors obtained from lapis lazuli, which has been added to the lexicon of art alongside colors such as the "Titian Red" and "Veronese Green", being unique.
An old Romanian chronicle written by Ion Neculce (1672-1745), records that Stephen the Great founded Voronet Monastery in 1488 to fulfill a pledge to the hermit Daniil, who had encouraged the ruling prince of Moldavia to chase the Turks from Wallachia. After having won the battle against the Turks, Stephen erected Voronet in three months and 21 days on the very spot Daniil had his small wooden hermitage.
It remained a working monastery until the start of Habsburg rule in 1785, and only became a religious retreat again after the fall of communism in 1991. Today it is a nun monastery consecrated to St. George, lying at a walking distance from the Gura Humorului town. Under the abbacy of Mother Superior Irina Pantescu, this new community strives to harmoniously combine a religious life of prayer and worship with housekeeping and farm work, running a painting workshop and providing guided tours for the visitors of the monastery.


Voronet Monastery is probably the most accomplished sample of Moldavian artistic achievement in architecture and painting. The monastery was built at a time of peace with the Turks, when Stephen had centralized the state, giving a new impetus to its economy and culture. Its inside and outside paintings were made between 1534-1535, during Prince Petru Rares's rule and at the behest of Metropolitan Grigore Rosca, a salient scholar of his time. In 1547 Grigore Rosca added to the monastery a porch. The paintings on the church walls (which have been made by masters whose names remained unknown, except that of Marcu, master painter, whose name is inscribed on the left side of the entrance door) have a distinctive chromatic harmony, a special manner of composition, nerve and clarity. They are imbued with the softness and warmth of the Moldavian spirit, whereas their colors were drawn from the surrounding nature abounding in blue and green. The artistic approach of painters has a warm humanism, as religious scenes depict Moldavian living people of those times. Thus the angels of the frescoes have the sweet faces of Moldavian women, the archangels blow the bucium - a Romanian shepherd's musical instrument similar to an alpenhorn- the souls carried to heaven are wrapped in Moldavian towels, whereas the souls doomed to the fire of hell wear turbans just like the Turks - Moldavia's fierce enemies at the time.(BTG)

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