| GPS | (47.621105194092; 26.232215881348) |
| district | Suceava |
| region | Moara |
| locality | Bulai |
| address | |
| category | Religious attractions |
| year | 1513 |
| ethnic | Armenian |
This is an Armenian nuns church, built during 1512-1513 in the village of Bulai, on Bulai's Hill, ”on a round peak, man-made, on a green hillock” (as Nicolae Iorga wrote) from the commune of Moara, the county of Suceava, situated near the European road (Fălticeni-Suceava), on the left, in the valley, before entering the municipality of Suceava.The monastic complex is made of 2 objectives:”The Assumption” Church and the inside wall. The Armenian name Hagigadar means in Armenian the”fulfilment of wishes”. The monastery church was built during the reign of Bogdan the Blind (1504-1517), by Drăgan Donavac (Donavachian), an Armenian cattle merchant. The archaeological findings show three stages in the construction of this church: In the first stage, from 1512, a church comprising only a nave and a sanctuary and a semi-spherical dome system, calotte-type. The old church’s foundations are very solid. At the base of an oilfield, seven silver coins were found, from the Bogdan the IIIrd reign (1504-1517). The second construction stage dates from the second half of the XVIIth century, when the current narthex was built (the access being made through the north main door) and an octagonal tower. The third stage took place in the second half of the XIXth century, when the wall separating the narthex from the nave was demolished, and the church got the present volumetric configuration. At the same time, two wide closed porches were built, of which only the one in the south still can be seen today. In the second half of the XVIIth century, the wall surrounding the monastery was built. During the period in which Bukovina was under Austrian domination (1775-1918), Hgigadar Monastery was considered for a long period of time as nuns´ metochion , being known as the ”Armenian metochion” or ”Mitoc”, although nuns have never been here, but only a handful of lonely women, who lived an austere life. Right after the first World War, the Armenian colony from Suceava got smaller and the church on Bulai Hill kept its reputation as having miraculous virtues. In the year 1943 the archimandrite Vazken Balgian (future Catholicos and supreme patriarch of all Armenians) spent at Hagigadar Monastery a period of canonical training, being trained by the Stavrofor priest Mampré Biberian, who stayed with him in Suceava and helped him learns and understand the Liturgy and the Armenian Church Rules. In the year 2001, the feast day of Hagigadar Monastery coincided with the 600 years celebration of the establishment of the Armenian Episcopacy from Suceava and 1700 years since the Christianity became a state religion in Armenia. The church inventory comprises several old icons: •The icon of the Mother of God in the sanctuary – considered to be miracles maker; •An icon of the Saints Apostles Bartolomeu and Jacob, with a Slavic inscription; •The icons of the four evangelists on the iconostasis; •The icons of St. Archdeacon Ștefan and St. Deacon Laurențiu on the sanctuary doors – with Romanian inscriptions. •In the monastery yard, there are two Armenian graves: •In front of the door on the north side of the church there is the grave of the Bishop Grigor Zaharian, archbishop of the Armenian Eparchy of Basarabia, with the registered office in Chișinău (1813-1827). •Of the stavrofor steward protopope Knel Mandalian (1885-1970) and his wife’s, the presbyter Araxi Mandalian (1899-1979). He is placed near the western wall of the monastery. Hagigadar Monastery is an important place of pilgrimage for the Armenians in Romania and diaspora. Starting with 1848, the Armenians started to go there two times a year in pilgrimage, as a result of the promise made to God in order to save them from the Asian cholera, and namely Sunday, around the Christian holiday of the Assumption (15th of August) and in the holiday of Saint Jacob (29th of December). Hagigadar Monastery is known as the Monastery of Wishes. The oral tradition says that any wish, for which the believers pray every day, will come true, if they respect the rituals.
