Situated 72 kilometres from the famous fortress of Suceava, the Putna Monastery,the first and foremost religious foundation of the Pious King Stephen the Great, has had its location on the legendary place of Bukovina for more than five centuries.
The cronicler Ion Neculce mentions the circumstances under which the place where the monastery was to be erected was chosen : “When he decided to build the Monastery of Putna, Stephen the Great launched his arrow from the top of a mountain that was in the neighborhood of the monastery and on the very place the arrow fell, the sanctuary or the altar was built”
The construction of the church of the Dormition of Theotokos began on July 10 th, 1466, after Stephen the Great conquered the fortress of Chilia, and it was ended in 1469, the service of consecration being performed on Septembrie 3, 1470. Afterwards the Princely House (1473), the cells, the fortress, the belfries, and the Treasure Tower were built, the entire workings being over in 1481.
For centuries the Putna Monastery had gone through many trials, fires, foreign invadings, earthquakes, but they could never put and end to the monastic life and the unstopped glory of God.
After the Habsburg occupation, on May 7, 1775, the monastery started to suffer some changes regarding its exterior look such as the spreading of the northern area of the precincts, the building of new cells (1852-1956), changes of the forms of the roof (1859).
The most important changes took place in 1902 under the supervision of the Austrian architect K.A. Romstorfer.
Although the image of the original church was preserved only in chronicles :
“ the paintings were covered with gold both inside and outside the churh”, being destroyed in 1653, and re-built between 1653-162 during the reigns of Vasile Lupu , Gheorghe Stefan and Eustratie Dabija, the churh was preserved in this form up to present days.
Generally speaking, the church obeyed the initial architecture said to belong to the Moldavian style, as it was formed of five rooms: a porch, narthes, burial vault, nave and altar. Thus one can find a mixture of the by the Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance architectures.The church was not repainted, in the porch being preserved fresco executed in the 18 th century.
The access in the church is made through the two lateral doors, framed with stone portals. The massive door that links the porch with the narthex has an upper inscription that reminds us the restoration works that took place during the reigns of Gheorghe Stefan and Eustratie Dabija.
From an architectural point of view, the porch is covered with two vaults in the form of a cross, and the narthex, with a squared shape, has a stellated vault. The crypt or the burial vault links and the nave, a detail that was specific to the architecture during Stephen the Great’s reign.
Conceived as a princely necropolis from the very beginning, the church of the Monastery of Putna shelters 14 graves, out of which 3 belong to some princes of the Musatini family. Made from the order of the prince, 12 years before he died, the grave of the pious king Stephen the Great is in the southern of the burial vault. Next to it there is the grave of Lady Maria Voichita. On the northen part there are other three graves : of Lady Maria of Mangop, of Petru and Bogdan, Stephen the Great’s sons.
The narthex houses the graves of ruler Bogdan III, the son of Stephen the Great, and of Lady Maria, Petru Rares’s wife. In the porch there is the grave of Teoctist I, Metropolitan of Moldavia, the one who anointed in 1477 as a ruler the pious king Stephen the Great.
On the order side there are the graves of Iacob Putneanul and those of his parents. The iconostasis that adorns the church today was executed in wood of lime and elm trees, in 1773, It is sculpted in the late Baroque style at the order and with the effort of the Metropolitan Iacob Putneanul.
As compared to the classical canon of the iconostasis that comprises four icon screens, the one of Putna has one more of 13 icons that represent the passions of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Among the valuable jewels of the monastery mention should be made of the miracle working icon of Theotokos wich was brought, according to the tradition, from Constantinople in 1472, by Lady Maria of Mangop, Stephen’s wife. Along with it the skull of the Saint Ghenadie, the wonder worker, which is covered with golden silver, they were donated to the church in 1488 by its founder.
According to the tradition, outside the church, in the southern part, next to the Holy Altar, there is the grave of St. Hierarch Ilie Iorest, a monk from Putna that was a Metropolitan of Transylvania, were be confessed the Orthodox faith during the Calvin persecution. After hard years of jail, when he come back to Putna, he died on March 12, 1678.
On the exterior the church is surrounded by sash twisted in cable moulding, a symbol of the Holy Trinity, a motive that can be also noticed in the interior adomment. The asymmetry of the abutments, seven on the northen side, and two on the southern part is not at random, as in the north it is the danger of field gliding. The entrance in the precincts of the monastery is made through the vaulted arch of storeyed tower on whose easten façade there is the Moldovian escutcheon.
The tower was built in 1757 during the reign of Constantin Racovita, this thing being also mentioned on the escutcheon of the western façade where the two escutcheons of Moldavia and Wallachia appear reunited. As the poet Mihai Eminescu along with other participants at the Geat H Holiday of Putna in 1871, talken together in the hall from upstairs, that building is called “ Eminescu Tower”. Also on the eastern side there is belfry built 1882.
The Princely House is on the southern side, and it was built between 1982-1988 on the foundations of the former princely house that was destroyed by the Habsburgs.
The works of reconstruction were mainly supervised by His Eminence Teoctis, when he was the Metropolitan of Moldavia.
The chapel of the monastery, whose celebration is the Ss Aostles Peter and Paul, was built by the Metropolitan Iacov Putneanul in 1759, on the place of former belfry which was deteriorated during the last important eartquake (1739). Between 1976-1983 it was restored, and also new rooms were added to it. The chapel was painted in frescoes between 1980-1984 by the brothers Mhail and Gavril Morosan when the abbot of the monastery was the Archimandrite lachint Unciuleac.
On the western side, next to the chapel, there is the Museum that was opened on July 6, 1976. A part of the artistic and historic treasure of the monastery is preserved here, and it consists of manuscripts ( gospels, psalm, books, teaching books etc. ) and embroideries, covers for the holy vessels, altar doors, cover for graves, priestly vestments) that are executed in the monastery's workshops.
The only buiding that was preserved from the time of Stephen the Great is the Treasure Tower whose construction was ended in 1481. The jewels of this holy place had been preserved here for centuries.
The Monastery of Putna is buit on the place of an hermitage, a thing that was demonstrated by the archeological searches. Only half of a meter under the foundation of the old Princely House some bones were found, being said to have belonged to five monks who had striven here a century before the monastery was built. The first community was formed by monks who came from the Neamt Monastery, guided by the Archimandrite Ioasaf, the first abbot of the Putna Monastery. Since then the monastic life has been carried on without stop, despite the foreign occupation and of the communist persecution. Owing from the very beginning a scriptorium workshop off calligraphy where the monks that attended the school of famous calligraph Gavriil Uric, used to copy liturgical books and the writings of the Holy Fathers, and also an embroidement workshop where threads of gold and silver were used for sewing, there also being a famous school for psaltic music led by Eustratie Protopsaltul ( the 15 th century), the Putna Monastery was to become soon a famous of the Medieval culture and arts in South-Eastern Europe.
The spiritual, culture and artistic life knew a flourishing moment during the pastorship of His Eminence Iacov Putneanul, under whose quidance a clerical school was founded 1774, and it was called “ The Spiritual Academy” being organized to the model of the one in Kiev which was founded by the St.Hierarch Petru Movila.
In Putna the teaching subjects were the Slavic, Greek, Roumania and Latin languages, grammar, rthetoric, astronomy, geography and the history of the universal church.
The flourishing of the art and science in this holy place is revealed by the numerous manuscripts that adorn the libraries of the big cities of the world ( London, Moscow, Leipsig, Sankt Peteresburg) and by the fact that the study of medicine was made according to the latest treaties in Europe.
These artistic preoccupations are still of interest for the monks of Putna though the beautiful Byzantine singings that can heard in the church.



BIBLIOGRAPHY: Brochures from the Monastery Putna