Bukovina and the Painted Monasteries

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Whether you consider it Southern Bukovina, separated for now from their kin across the border in the Ukraine, or you call it Northern Moldavia with family ties torn by the border between Romania and Moldova, it is most certainly a very special corner of the world.

This isolated corner of northern Romania was alway sparsely inhabited. From small bands of settlers who approached from the west, from Maramureş in the mid 14th century to a limited influx of Huțel shepherds from the north, it wasn’t until the Habsburgs annexed the region in 1774 that any sense of settlements, of village life began to develop. The Habsburgs remained in power until the end of World War I. With the fall of their centuries old empire, this rustic corner of the world came home to Romania.

But in its isolation and in its simple ways, this region gave birth to some fantastic Orthodox monasteries. Most were founded in the 15th and 16th centuries, an era when the threat of invading infidels gave birth to these fortress like complexes. And in the mid 15th century it is said that the Metropolitan of Moldavia, Grigore Roşca, developed the plan to help educate the illiterate faithful by painting biblical events and apocrypha on the out walls of the churches. The results are absolutely stunning. And as brilliant and capturing today as they must have been 600 years ago.

The frescoes are intricately designed and meticulously executed. And while the they are Byzantine at their core, and tell the stories of the church, they are richly infused with folk traditions and the local mythology.

And all this glory, exposed to the intense elements of this region’s weather, are only .25 millimeters thick! Perhaps the power of a spiritual faith not so commonly known these days somehow made for a powerful and long lived message that I was able to sit in awe of as the autumn sun shone through the brilliant falling leaves.

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