| GPS | (47.757946014404; 26.230049133301) |
| district | Suceava |
| region | Mitocu Dragomirnei |
| locality | Dragomirna |
| address | |
| category | Religious attractions |
| year | 1602-1609 |
| ethnic | Romanians |
Dragomirna Monastery is a fortified monastery complex, built during the period from 1602 to 1609 in Mitocu Dragomirnei village of the commune with the homonymous name (Suceava County) by the Moldavian Metropolitan Anastasia Crimca. It is situated 12 km north of Suceava city. The monastery church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit and has been included on the List of Historical Monuments from the county of Suceava since 2004. The monastery contains five objectives: •The Descent of the Holy Spirit church – built in 1609 •”St Nicholas” Chapel – built in the XVIIth century •The Abbotship – dating from the XVIIth century •The refectory – dating from 1609 •The enclosure wall – built in the XVIIth century. Also, the list includes the church dedicated to Saints Enoch, Elijah and John the Theologian, built in the year 1602. It is situated outside the monastery complex, but belongs to Dragomirna Monastery, being the church of the monastery cemetery. The history of the monastery begins in 1602, during the reign of Ieremia Movilă, with the construction of the small church in the cemetery, whose patrons were Anastasie Crimca, Luca and Simion Stroici and continues in the immediately subsequent years with the building of the large church, which was finished around the year 1609. Here, the usual inscription is missing, so that the year and the names of the founders have been revealed following the study of documents of that time: they are the logothete Luca Stroici and the metropolitan Anastasie Crimca whose personality gave to the monastery a high cultural spirit. Anastasie Crimca founded the school of miniature painters of Dragomirna, activity which covered also other artistic manifestations: embroidery, silver work. The characters of the School of Dragomirna came into prominence throughout the XVIIth century, thus giving the Moldavian art an unmistakable specificity. During the reign of Miron Brancovschi, as a result of more and more frequent invasions of Turkish, Tatar and Polish armies, this place is given, by the voivode, a powerful fortress-like enclosure, being completed in 1627. Less than a half a century after being built, in 1653, the monastery is attacked by the Cossacks of Timuș Hmelnițki, who have plundered the monastery, taking most of its valuables and causing damage to the buildings. During the following centuries, new rehabilitation works to the monastery complex were made. After Bukovina is occupied by the Austrians, Dragomirna is keeping the status of monastery, which saved this architectural complex from destruction (as in case of other monasteries like Pătrăuți, Voroneț, Humor, St. Ilie).The restoration works of the monastery started in 1843 and continued, with interruptions, in the years 1918 and 1923. Between 1961 and 1972 the monastery underwent extensive restorations. The small cemetery church has a rectangular shape and ends in a semi-circular apse, and to the west, with an open polygonal porch. The monument occupies a surface close to that of a supporting rectangular trapeze made of stone (at the bottom). The four corners have narrow square towers, built by Miron Barnovschi. The access to the premises is made under the ”gate tower” of the central south side. On the west and north side of the wall there are the cells built in 1843-1846 and modified during the general restoration. At the left of the ”gate tower”, over two levels of basements, there is the refectory built in the Gothic style (today a museum). The church is rising in the centre of the enclosure, being the masterpiece of the entire complex. It has a narrow rectangular shape, with semi-circular apse to the east and polygonal porch to the west, a broaden nave to the north and semi-circular apses to the south, made in the thickness of the wall. The inside comprises the following spaces: sanctuary, nave, narthex and porch. The tower rising above the nave is slender and has a new type of dome, comprising longitudinal and transversal arches, pendants and a cross of two rows of arches which are repeating also in the semi-spherical dome of the tower. A new element that we find in Dragomirna is the plaited rope, a discontinuous twist which decorates the inside and the outside of the church; other new elements encountered are: the narthex dome decorated with ribs and the Gothic rib embroidery of the porch’s dome. Which strikes the visitor’s eye is the unusual large size of the construction – architectural tendency in the past – highlighted here through the impressive height of the church, culminating with the stone tracery of the temple. The architectural elements, among the traditional Moldavian forms, contain Muntenian influences (the metallic belt), elements of Gothic tradition and late Renaissance (in the frames), as well as Georgian oriental influences (tower's carved decoration).Dragomirna keeps the frescoes only in the sanctuary and the narthex, remaining yet unknown if the narthex and the porch have been painted or if the painting was lost as a result of the destructions caused by Cossacks and Tatars. The painting and the scenes depicted in the sanctuary and the narthex are made in the style of the miniatures used in the school of Dragomirna. The qualities of this picture are deciphered in the dynamic character of the composition, in the colour range based on vivid, contrasting colours – blood red, blue, green – enhanced by the abundant use of gold. Although it is known that he main founders of the monastery, Luca Strici and Anastasie Crimca were buried inside the church, in the case of the first, the grave remains unidentified, and in the case of the second, the grave in the nave without any inscription was assigned to him. From the rich dowry of items donated to the monastery, we can find today a few items of embroidery, silverware, sculpture and, not least, a few manuscripts with miniatures by Anastasie Crimca. It's worth mentioning: carved wooden crosses, embroideries with golden, silver and silk thread from the XVI, XVII centuries; golden silver latches for books, one of the people who created them being the master craftsman Grigoe Moisiu Zlătarul, who worked at the beginning of the XVIIth century; five manuscripts with miniatures belonging to the School of Dragomirna, initiated by Anastasie Crimca, strongly demonstrating Moldavian miniaturists’ originality and talent who created a new style, based on the art of the miniaturists during the time of Stephen the Great.
