Voronet Monastery

Magnificent by its construction, but mainly by its unique exterior Byzantin art paintings, The Voronet Monastery, it’s also called “The Sistine Chapel of the East” for its huge fresco on the western façade called “The Last Judgement”. The major color of the mural paintings is the unique “Voronet blue”, which is regarded by the imitative arts’ specialists as a unique color in the world and it’s compared with the Veronese’s green and the Rubens’ red.

Jesus Christ’s genealogy is painted and the blue background and Latin and Greek philosophers are painted on the columns.

After hundreds of years of being exposed to nature’s moods, the durability of the exterior frescos amaze us, even today. Vorenet’s exterior paintings have been executed at the highest artistic level in the time of the Petru Rares reign. It is considered to be the most succesful feudal art assembley of Moldovia.

It is a miracle that the mortar painted by an old and primitive handicraft, got throughout nearly half a millenium. The “Voronet blue” composition has not been totally elucidated to the present days. A blue rock called Azurite seems to be the main ingredient of the “Voronet blue”, as the researchers have concluded. Nowadays, the Azurite rock, is extracted only in China, France and Africa.

The Voronet Monastery have been built on the place of an old wooden church. In just four and a half months, the Prince Stephen the Great built in 1488 The Voronet Monastery. Since Stephen the Great reign, the monastery became an important cultural centre in the medieval Moldovia.

The Voronet Monastery is located in the Voronet Village, at just 36 km from Suceava city and 4 km from Gura Humorului city. In 1993 the Voronet Monastery became part of the UNESCO World Heritage.