VARATEC Monastery

About VARATEC Monastery

Varatec monastery is located in Agapia commune, at 12 km to Targu Neamt and 40 km to Piatra Neamt in a small valley at the foot of Stanisoara mountain , at an altitude of 460 m.

Year of construction: 1785 by Mother Olimpiada

The Patron of Varatec Monastery: “Adormirea Maicii Domnului – The Departure of Virgin Mary” (15 August)

Mother Olimpiada was a nun from the former Topolita Hermitage and between 1781 and 1785 settles in this place and creates the foundation for a monastic settlement in the plane called Varatec. The first abbot of Varatec Monastery was mother Nazaria from Durau. In the year 1808, when the number of the nuns was high they began the construction of a church made out of stone and the surrounding walls. The construction was finished in the year 1812. In the year 1821 Varatec Monastery was plundered and the nuns killed. Mother Olimpiada hardly make it alive and retreat at the Secu Monastery.

The church from Varatec Monastery has an architecture that combines the traditional Moldavian style from the XV-XVI centuries with foreign influences from the XVII-XIX centuries. The church is built in the form of a ship with two round and very high towers and with a roof in the form of a bell with a polygonal base. The exterior walls of the monastery are simple decorated.

The painting from inside the church it’s the original one, painted in 1841 and it was remade in 1882 in a neo-byzantine style by painters I. Ioan and D. Iliescu. The wall that separates the altar from the rest of the church is sculpted in wood of tisa and covered in gold. The walls of Varatec Monastery were built in the first half of the XIX century.

The monastic complex from Varatec also includes the church “St. Joan the Baptist” from the XIX century where we can find the grave of Veronica Micle and the church “The Change of Face- of Jesus” from the XIX century.