Unseen Romania

Unseen Monasteries from Oltenia

Oltenia is a historical province in the southwestern Romania. Protected by the Carpathian Mountains in the north, Oltenia is a dreamlike region that is best described by the EU’s famous device: “unity in diversity”. Apparently antagonistic forces of nature have joined their efforts in order to create an unusually beautiful land where rocky mountains were taught to cohabit with shady hills, mysterious plateaux, fertile planes and chilly rivers. Secular oaks hide legends of Wallachian princes and their orthodox tabernacles. It is their faith and brave acts that eventually saved Oltenia from the numerous foreign occupations.

Tismana Monastery is one of the most beautiful and well-known monasteries from Oltenia. The name of the monastery has Thraco-Dacian roots, meaning “a fortified place”, also atesting our ancestors’ continuity of existence on the same territory, Dacia. Tismana Monastery was built between 1375-1378 by St. Nicodim on the foundation of an earlier Dacian-Roman fortress. On 26 December 1406, St. Nicodim passed away and was burried in the porch of the monastery. However, in 1855, due to some uninspired restorations, the porch was demolished, thus the church loosing an important element of the Romanian architectural style.

In 1821, Tismana Monastery served as a centre of resistance against the fanariot rulers from where Romanian revolutionaries under the command of Tudor Vladimirescu could get weapons and supplies. Nowadays, Tismana Monastery still shelters among its thick walls an important repertory of cult objects: liturgical books, old manuscripts, wooden sculptures, silver works, mural icons and embroideries which were saved from the numerous wars, foreign incursions and times of political unrest which took place in the course of six centuries.

Situated in the neighborhood of two other important monasteries: Turnu and Stânişoara, Cozia Monastery was built between 1386 and 1388 by Mircea cel Batran in a region protected by marrowy walnut trees, very difficult to reach at that time. The name of the monastery itself derives from the word “coz” meaning walnut. Situated in one of the most picturesque landscapes of Oltenia, Cozia Monastery was primarily built for military reasons as it served as a fortress in the time of Mircea cel Batran, prince of Wallachia (1386-1418).

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