Agapia Monastery
The Agapia Monastery ( Romanian Mănăstirea Agapia ) is a Romanian Orthodox nunnery in the municipality of Agapia , in Neam Kreis County , Bucovina , Romania . The monastery is a listed building and is located about ten kilometers southwest of Târgu Neamț .
history
Bell tower
Church of the Holy Voivodes
The road to Golgotha - painting by Nicolae Grigorescu
Saint Eustațiu - painting by Nicolae Grigorescu
Saint Teodor Tiron - painting by Nicolae Grigorescu
The Holy Trinity - painting by Nicolae Grigorescu
Agapia Monastery was built between 1642 and 1644 by order of Gavril, brother of Prince Vasile Lupu . After the church was completed in 1644, monks first moved in . Varlaam , the then Metropolitan of Moldavia and Prince Vasile Lupu took part in the inauguration of the church . The church was dedicated to the Archangels Michael and Gabriel in 1647 . It was run as a monastery until 1803.
On the occasion of the conversion of the monastery into a nunnery in the middle of the 19th century, the first complete restoration of the church was carried out. Between 1858 and 1861 Nicolae Grigorescu did the interior painting and the iconostasis . The complex has thick defensive walls and a mighty bell tower. The houses of the nuns around the church were built by the court architect Enache Ctisi . Around the monastery there are more than 320 houses that belong to the monastery village. Some of them are between 150 and 200 years old. A complete renovation of the monastery was carried out between 1995 and 2009.
Over 500 nuns live within the walls of the monastery, working the fields, tending vegetable gardens, weaving carpets and making embroidery . The monastery is known for its carpets and embroidery. The carpets of the Parliament Palace in Bucharest were made in the Agapia Monastery. In the 18th century the monastery was a school for copying Romanian liturgical manuscripts.
museum
The monastery has a museum with a collection of historical and artistic objects of value. These include icons from the 16th and 17th centuries, some fragments of the iconostasis of Nicolae Grigorescu from the 17th century, fabrics and embroidery, crosses and other religious objects, as well as old Moldovan-style manuscripts and carpets from the studios of the monastery come.
In the Agapia Monastery, many important figures in Romanian literature wrote masterpieces. Among them were: Mihai Eminescu , Bogdan Petriceicu Haşdeu and his daughter Iulia, Ion Luca Caragiale , Alexandru Vlahuță , George Coşbuc , Calistrat Hogaş , Duiliu Zamfirescu and others. Behind the monastery is the former house of Alexandru Vlahuță, which is now a museum.
literature
- Nicolae Iorga : Agapia și mănăstirile de astăzi , in: Semănătorul , 1903 ( Romanian )
Web links
- Web representation of the Agapia monastery
- Agapia Monastery , at hpgrumpe.de (Hans-Peter Grumpe).
Coordinates: 47 ° 10 ′ 13.7 ″ N , 26 ° 14 ′ 7.9 ″ E