Curchi Monastery
By Diana Ungureanu/ Chisinau / Moldova.ORG/ -- One of the most beautiful monasteries in Moldova is located at a distance of 55 km from Chisinau. Some legends about the history of the monastery tell that it would have been founded by Stephen the Great, but this fact has not any documentary evidence.
The most plausible version is that the monastery was founded in 1773, by brothers Iordake and Mihail Curchi, who built firstly a wooden hermitage and later began the construction of the stone churches.
On the territory of the monastery have been about six churches. Nowadays the monastery is architecturally composed of five churches, an abbey, some buildings for cells, a refectory, a tower at the entrance and a wall.
The largest and the most imposing church, which “reigns” over the entire monastery, is the winter church and it was built between 1866-1872.
During the Soviet regime, this place of worship was turned into a psychiatric hospital. Until 1999, the monastery was abandoned and almost ruined.
Today, the monastery is almost entirely renovated, changing completely its look comparing to that was about a decade ago.
The new front of the monastery Curchi is included very well in the tourism circuit, being a touristic attraction more and more often visited by the Moldavian and foreign lands tourists. Sunday worships, which gather a lot of Orthodox Christians, are of a rare beauty.
Nature completes the landscape of the monastery, which seems to be like a piece of heaven on the banks of Vaticiu.
It is a picturesque, wonderful, and full of piety and faith place that deserves to be visited and admired. Don’t overlook this place of worship and you will never regret the time spent here.
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