View photos

Bukovina is a Romanian region situated in the northern part of Moldavia. This part of Romania is especially beautiful, with a clean unspoiled nature, and a unique landscape: thick forests and imposing crests, branching off from the Carpathians, which allow a wonderful panorama of valleys, with houses scattered here and there, with large gardens and farm yards inviting one to lie down by the haystacks and look up at the blue sky with its marvelous hues.

A cradle of old civilization, where history blends with legend, Bukovina is known for its famous painted monasteries. They have been built at a time marked by the personalities of the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great (1457-1504), an illustrious army commander, a defender of Christendom and a prolific promoter of culture, and of his son, Petru Rares (1530-1538; 1541-1546).

With their painted exterior walls, decorated with 15th and 16th century frescoes that are considered masterpieces of Byzantine art, these churches in northern Moldavia are unique. There is, indeed, no other place in the world where such a group of churches, with such high quality exterior frescoes, are to be seen.

The outer wall painting in fresco technique was perceived by Michelangelo, for instance, as "the most difficult and most daring way of painting". But what is coined as almost a miracle is the fact that a layer of color of only 0.25 cm thick could possibly resist to all climatic, seasonal and human interferences for over 400 years.

Nevertheless, the value of the frescoes is not only a matter of painting technique. The idea of decorating the outer walls of a church with scenes taken from the Bible is original in itself, since it is a remarkable sample of how people could be educated by means of images during the Middle Ages. The images are a mixture of biblical events with folk tales, legends, and great historical events, like the fall of Constantinople (1453), for instance. The reasons for such vast scenes were both religious and didactic was to educate the illiterate.

Far from being merely wall decorations, the paintings represent complete cycles of religious murals on all facades, which is another element that renders the five painted monasteries of Bukovina unique. Their outstanding composition, elegant outline and harmonious colors blend perfectly with the surrounding landscape. There is an absolute harmony established between man's genius at work and the beautiful natural background against which the monasteries were set.

In acknowledgement of their singleness, the monasteries in Bukovina are now UNESCO protected cultural sites. In 1975, Bukovina monasteries have been awarded the prestigious "Pomme d'Or" prize by the International Federation of Writers and Journalists on Tourism.