Capriana Monastery

In the picturesque Codri, 40 km north-west of Chisinau, lies one of the oldest monasteries in Moldova, Capriana. The monastery was founded in 1429. For a long time Capriana Monastery served as the residence of the Metropolitan of Moldova. The monastery enjoyed the patronage of the hospodars, including Stephen the Great, and it was home to the chronicler Eftimie and to Chiprian, one of Moldova's first poets.

In 1429 Capriana Monastery was built of wood. In 1545 the summer Church of the Dormition was erected in stone. In 1840 the winter Church of St. George was built, and in 1903 – the Church of St. Nicholas.

Within its walls Capriana Monastery held what was at the time the largest monastic library. It preserves valuable donations from the hospodars and precious manuscripts.

Moldovan history has several versions of how Capriana Monastery was founded. According to one of them, the monastery's founder is – Alexander the Good. On 10 February 1429 he granted Lady Marena the Visnavet monastery, whose abbot was Chiprian. From the time of Stephen the Great (1470) there are two deeds certifying the transfer of the Visnavet monastery to the administration of Neamt Monastery. The second deed records that Lady Cneajna gave Chiprian's glade on the Bic to Neamt Monastery. In the 1540s the name Visnavet was replaced by Capriana. Under this name the monastery appears in a Slavonic record from 1545.

In 1698 Antioh Cantemir donated the Capriana cloister to the Zograf Monastery on Mount Athos. In 1818 Metropolitan Gavriil Banulescu-Bodoni began a large-scale reorganisation and reconstruction of Capriana Monastery. The Church of the Dormition, erected back in 1545, was rebuilt almost from its foundations. The bell tower with nine bells was built in 1812.

In 1947 all the monks were expelled from Capriana Monastery. The monastery itself was turned into a sanatorium for children with tuberculosis. It was officially closed in 1962. In 1989 the Capriana cloister reopened, and restoration work began.

Metropolitan Gavriil (Banulescu-Bodoni) is buried at Capriana Monastery.