Arbore Painted Monastery

Arbore Monastery is located in the northeastern part of Romania,  Bukovina region, about 30 km from the town of Suceava. Arbore Monastery is among the famous painted monasteries in Romania and it was listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1993.

The monastery was built in 1503, by Luca Arbore, in the village of Soloca. He was one of the important boyars of Stephen the Great, being since 1486 the gatekeeper of Suceava. He defended bravely the Suceava Fortress in 1497 against Polish attacks. Five month later, he erected the monastery, next to his private residence, meant as a family chapel and cemetery.

The church has a rectangular plan on the outside without a tower. The extremely elegant silhouette of the building is emphasized by the wall extension to the west by about 2,5 meters, and their union above, through an arch; originally thought as a space for the steeple, a new architectural element in Moldavia of the time.

It has remarkable fresco paintings against a predominant green background. The green is in five shadows and 47 hues combined with red, blue, yellow, pink and ochre.  The interior paintings were seriously damaged in the 17th-18th centuries when the church remained without its roof.

The best preserved interior frescoes are found on the relatively sheltered south and west walls.

In the narthex, which also functions as a burial chamber, one may find the tombs of the church founders, Luca Arbore and his Polish wife, Iuliana, decorated with unusual Gothic stonework that bears a strong Polish influence. The icon screen dates from about the same time as the church itself. It is heavily encrusted with smoke, but paintings underneath are intact, preserved by the very grime which obscures them. Inside the monastery, an ethnographic museum with a rich display of the region’s most valuable assets is worth visiting. The monastery was restored between 1909-1914 and 1936-1937.