HÎRJAUCA MONASTERY

The monastery of Hîrjauca is located in the middle of a forest of centuries-old oaks, on a small river of the same name, with waters reputed to be curative. Founded in 1740, this monastery is represented on the back of the 10 lei banknotes. An old man named Teodosie is said to have built a house there which became a place of prayer. Thanks to the support of the boyar Niculiță and Miron Bădica monastic cells were created and a wooden church was built. According to another source, the monastery was founded in 1750 by a monk from the town of Calaraşi. The monastery underwent some development and restoration from 1818 to 1846 under the supervision of Archimandrite Spiridon Filipovici, a former soldier of the Imperial Russian Navy and a native of Montenegro. The Church of St Spiridon was built from 1820 to 1836 but was destroyed much later by fire in 1991. The Church of the Ascension of the Lord dates back to 1848 and its classical architecture is reminiscent of the Cathedral of the Nativity at Chișinău. Its murals date from 1922 and are the work of Pavel Piscareov. The monastery was closed in 1953 and became a sanatorium in 1958. Its administration and the Ministry of Culture decided in 1981 to restore its frescoes: Vasile Negruți, Serafim Prodan, Alexandru Ivanov and Ludmila Grigorașenco removed layers of lime and updated the frescoes made in 1901-1906 by Blinov, Stoyanov and Lemaic. In 1993 the monks were once again able to live, pray, work the land and raise animals.