About Putna Monastery

Putna Monastery was built between 1466 and 1469 immediately following Stephen the Great’s victory in the battle in which he captured the Chilia Citadel, then held by a Hungarian garrison. On 3 September 1470, in a ceremony attended by Stephen and his entire family, Metropolitan Teoctist consecrated the completed monastery, which quickly became the most important religious site in the region and one of medieval Moldavia’s most significant cultural, religious, and artistic centres. Stephen the Great (Ștefan cel Mare), regarded as one of the most consequential rulers in Romanian history, reigned for half a century, from 1457 to 1504, earning his epithet “the Great” through a remarkable series of successful military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire that shaped the course of both Romanian and wider European history. Upon his death in 1504, Stephen was buried at Putna, and his tomb has served as a pilgrimage destination for more than five centuries, establishing the monastery as the spiritual centre of Romanian Orthodox tradition and national historical memory. The 19th-century Romanian national poet Mihai Eminescu famously described Putna as “the Jerusalem of the Romanian people,” calling it “an oasis of greenery, flowers and beauty” — a characterisation that has become inseparable from the monastery’s cultural identity ever since. The monastery’s museum today preserves an important collection of medieval art objects, drawn primarily from the era of Stephen the Great and his immediate successors, offering a direct material connection to one of the defining periods of Moldavian history.