The Moldovite Monastery, built by Petru Rares in 1532 and painted in 1537, is a new building on the site - or, more precisely, near - another older, ruined one. We do not know anything precise about the date when the first building was erected. Instead, there are more certain news related to the construction of the stone monument at the beginning of the reign of Alexander the Good, whose ruins can still be seen today.
Moldovita Monastery - brief history
As a certainty we have the fact that, in 1410, the Moldovian Monastery existed, because Alexander the Good completed its domain, calling it "the newly built one". At that time, the construction of the monastery at the foot of the mountains between Moldova and Transylvania must have had as its purpose the supervision of the respective border area, in the document from the year 1411, which establishes the border of the village of Moldovita, there is a mention of a "citadel", and the researchers found, not far from the monastery, traces of masonry and a shirt of chain mail, which attests to the existence of a fortification in this area.
In connection with this guarding role of the monastery, a local tradition was preserved, according to which the abbot was also the head of a military organization, which included all the villages of the Razesi on the river valley. It is not yet known how much this legend corresponds to the reality of that time.
Not far from the Ciumarnei river, where the old wooden church used to be, you can still see the ruins of the oldest stone church in Moldova, built in the early years of the 15th century. Once sheltered to the northwest, by stony, forested heights, it was destroyed, apparently, due to landslides, at the beginning of the 16th century.
On the neighboring hills, you can still see the fragments of a pipe that brought water to the monastery. The ruined walls, half covered with rubble, allow to read the original plan of the church, in the shape of a trefoil, similar to that of another old monument of Moldova.
For more than half a century now, the church, less ruined, still preserves the traces of a central dome, raised on the nave. In its current plan there is a room of the graves, which seems to be an addition. Traces of painting still visible, preserved in the window frames, show that it was applied on a layer of mortar, in a special way compared to the one existing on the monuments of the time. The few fragments found in the rubble are similar to those recently found in the excavations in the defense ditch of the Suceava fortress. They date from the era of Alexander the Good.
In 1532, during his reign, the old monument was abandoned and the construction of a new monastery began. The stone was brought from the valley of the Moldovita river or broken from the coast of the mountain from Vama, not far from the monastery. The surrounding wall was then raised around the church, which gave the whole the appearance of a small fortress. Enclosing a quadrangle with sides of 40 meters, 1.20 meters thick and 6 meters high, this wall is preserved only on three sides, to the south being partly demolished or incorporated in the subsequent constructions.