Bogdana Monastery is a

Romanian Orthodox The Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC; ro, Biserica Ortodoxă Română, ), or Patriarchate of Romania, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, and one of the nine patriarchates ...

monastery in the town of

Rădăuți Rădăuți (; german: Radautz; hu, Radóc; pl, Radowce; uk, Радівці, ''Radivtsi''; yi, ראַדעװיץ ''Radevits''; tr, Radoviçe) is a town in Suceava County, north-eastern Romania. It is situated in the historical region of Buko ...

, northern

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. Its church is the oldest still standing religious building in

Moldavia Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centr ...

. The monastery was built by

Bogdan I of Moldavia Bogdan I, or Bogdan the Founder ( ro, Bogdan Întemeietorul), was the first independent ruler, or voivode, of Moldavia in the 1360s. He had initially been the voivode, or head, of the Vlachs in the Voivodeship of Maramureș in the Kingdom of Hu ...

(1359–1365) sometime around 1360.

Burials

It was to become his and some the Mușatini voievodes

necropolis A necropolis (plural necropolises, necropoles, necropoleis, necropoli) is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek ''nekropolis'', literally meaning "city of the dead". The term usually im ...

. Here are buried all the rulers of Moldavia from Bogdan I to

Alexandru cel Bun Alexander the Good ( ro, Alexandru cel Bun or ''Alexandru I Mușat''; c. 1375 – 1 January 1432) was a Voivode (Lord) of Moldavia, reigning between 1400 and 1432, son of Roman I Mușat. He succeeded Iuga to the throne, and, as a ruler, init ...

. There are ten graves inside the monastery's

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chri ...

: * seven in the naos: ** Bogdan I (in the south-eastern corner) ** Lațcu Voievod (besides the same wall as Bogdan I) ** an unmarked grave supposedly Maria's–Bogdan I's wife, or Ana's–Lațcu's wife; the grave is at ground level and not above it as the other ones ** Ștefan I (on the northern wall) ** Roman I (on the northern wall) ** Bogdan, brother of

Alexander the Good Alexander the Good ( ro, Alexandru cel Bun or ''Alexandru I Mușat''; c. 1375 – 1 January 1432) was a Voivode (Lord) of Moldavia, reigning between 1400 and 1432, son of Roman I Mușat. He succeeded Iuga to the throne, and, as a ruler, ini ...

(on the northern wall) ** Bogdan, son of Alexander the Good (on the northern wall) * three in the

pronaos A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

: ** Doamna Stana, wife of Bogdan III cel Chior and the mother of Ștefăniță Vodă (on the northern side) ** Anastasia, daughter of Lațcu (on the northern side) **

Bishop Ioanichie A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is c ...

(died 1504) (before the pronaos door) The graves were attended to, and marked properly by

Ștefan cel Mare Stephen III of Moldavia, most commonly known as Stephen the Great ( ro, Ștefan cel Mare; ; died on 2 July 1504), was Voivode (or Prince) of Moldavia from 1457 to 1504. He was the son of and co-ruler with Bogdan II, who was murdered in 1451 ...

. The rocks on top of the graves were created by Jan (c. 1480) at the order of Ștefan cel Mare, "in a style that is different in principle from the oriental decorative sculpture" (P. Comărnescu). They are decorated with Byzantine-oriental ornaments like palmata–a stylized palm plant leaf and local motives like leaves of

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engl ...

ash tree ''Fraxinus'' (), commonly called ash, is a genus of flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45–65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous, though a number of subtropical species are evergr ...

leaves,

elm tree Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of Nort ...

leaves.

Paintings

The first internal painting of the church is from the times of Alexandru cel Bun (14th century). In 1558

Alexandru Lăpușneanu Alexandru IV Lăpușneanu (1499 – 5 May 1568) was Ruler of Moldavia between September 1552 and 18 November 1561 and then between October 1564 and 5 May 1568. His wife and consort was Doamna Ruxanda Lăpușneanu, the daughter of Peter IV Rare� ...

started the restoration of the original painting and following year enlarged the church building. Other restorations happened in the 18th and 19th centuries: between 1745 and 1750, in the time of Bishop Iacob Putneanul and in 1880 when Epaminonda Bucevschi, a Bukovinean painter, created the current frescoin

tempera Tempera (), also known as egg tempera, is a permanent, fast-drying painting medium consisting of colored pigments mixed with a water-soluble binder medium, usually glutinous material such as egg yolk. Tempera also refers to the paintings done ...

External links

*
www.bogdana.ro
* https://web.archive.org/web/20070702155726/http://www.manastiri-bucovina.go.ro/bogdana.htm, https://web.archive.org/web/20070630212414/http://www.manastiri-bucovina.go.ro/bogdana-eng.htm (English version with less information) {{coord, 47, 50, 33.36, N, 25, 55, 2.69, E, display=title, type:landmark_scale:5000_region:RO-SV Romanian Orthodox monasteries of Suceava County Historic monuments in Suceava County Christian monasteries established in the 14th century 14th-century establishments in Romania Burial sites of European royal families 1360s establishments in Europe Rădăuți