Voronet and Dragomirna Monasteries

Bucovina’s painted monasteries

Suceava is a good base for visiting the painted monasteries of the surrounding Bucovina area.  But these monasteries are out of town and it is difficult to do with public transport.

I was very fortunate to secure a tour at the last minute for a half-day tour that offered Humorului and Voronet monasteries.  I had hoped to see some of the most highly-recommended ones but they are under restoration.  I didn’t really have much choice anyway.

Sebastian the tour guide turned up at 0845 in a nice car with a couple of Spaniards, one of them being a Sikh convert.  Sebastian explained that Humorului was under considerable scaffolding but we can still visit but offered Dragomirna monastery instead, asking us to make a choice.  We reverted to him, asking for his recommendation and Dragomirna it was!

Voronet Monastery

It was an hour’s drive towards the southwest to Voronet.  What made Voronet amazing to me was that it was built over just three months in 1488.

The exterior of the monastery’s church is decorated rich with frescoes much of which was against an intense blue, known as Voronet Blue.

Sadly, the north face of the church has lost considerable colour due to rain rather than then sun’s bleaching action.  It was explained to me that all the frescoes are original.  Restoration involves removing dirt, soot etc from the frescoes and does not allow for repainting.

The frescoes on the four walls of the church are as follows:

• South face: Family tree of Jesus.  This is not something I’ve seen before as I hear more of his divine side but little of his human side, let alone have it being documented and perhaps glorified in this manner.
• East face: The exterior of the apse is decorated with a hierarchy of holy characters starting from the bottom:  plebes of some kind (can’t remember the word, maybe clergy), saints, then apostles, then prophets, then angels and finally archangels at the top.
• North face: This is the side that’s had the most weathering from the rain.  It depicts Genesis with Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel.
• West face: This depicts the Last Judgement.

I was curious as to why this place was referred to as a monastery when there were nuns rather than monks here.  In Romania, monasteries are used in a gender-neutral manner without the use of the term convent.

Voronet was originally for monks but since reopening in 1991 after communism, it was used by nuns.

Text continues after this gallery.

Dragomirna Monastery

We departed Voronet around 1100 and backtracked towards Suceava then went about 15 mins north of the city to Dragomirna Monastery.  This was a very different monastery with a fortified appearance, and built around 1600.

Inside the walls was a very tall skinny church.  The interior was only decorated in one half, with the undecorated part restored from war and fire damage.

We were given a chance to walk on the walls a little for better view of the monastery.

Text continues after this gallery.

Sebastian explained that there were no mosques built in Romania by the Ottoman (apart from the one in Constanta built by the Romanian Kings for Tartar community).  This was because the area was given relative autonomy by the Ottoman in exchange for the King surrendering a prince as hostage.

I also learnt that the Romanian Orthodox church does not share the Julian calendar with the Russian Orthodox church.  Instead, since 1924 it has followed modified Gregorian calendar which sees fixed feasts like Christmas using the Gregorian date but Easter is in line with the Russian date.

Rest of the day

I had a very good slice of pizza for lunch from a takeaway bar called Luca. The toppings were generous and delicious and despite just sitting on the shelf, it was still had crispy edges.

Dinner was an awesome salad with pork sliced off the doner.