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The Three Hierarchs Monastery is the most impressive church in Iași, erected by voivode Vasile Lupu between 1637 and 1639.
The name is given by the three great priests of the Byzantine Empire in the 4th century – Basil the Great (from Caesarea of Cappadocia), Gregory the Theologist (of Nazianzus) and John Chrysostom. The Church’s plane and volumetric are typical for the 16th century Moldavia: the building’s thin shape, the presence of the three lateral apses shaped as a cross, the over-posed vaults at the base of the octagonal towers and the tower’s tambour shaped as a star in 16 corners, symbol of the voivode crown, placed on a square base.
The edifice’s uniqueness is given by the sculpted exterior as a wonderful stone lace. The decorations are organized on 30 different horizontal stripes: niches, Russian colonnades, small Oriental porticos with accolade archways and different embedded flowers, Persian vases, Georgian or Armenian geometric motifs or the lily flower. The influence of Transylvanian Gothic is visible at the abutments, at the stone reinforcements of the windows and at the door framings with cross cornices.
The original inside painting was completely remade in 1889, new elements being added. The iconostasis was changed in the same period with a new one sculpted in Carrara marble and adorned with mosaics and enamels. In the pronaos we can observe, the funerary niches of Vasile Lupu’s family (left) and of Princes Dimitrie Cantemir and Alexandru Ioan Cuza (right), which makes this church a true pantheon of national history. In the nave, there is an altar with a marble niche adorned with mosaics that was initially destined for the relics of St. Parascheva, brought to Iasi by Vasile Lupu in 1641. These mosaics represent some aspects of the Saint’s life and the bringing of her relics from Constantinople to Iași. On the 26th of December 1818, a powerful fire damaged the refectory which was temporarily sheltering the Saint’s coffin, and determined their permanent movement to the Metropolitan Cathedral in 1889. In the beginning, the outer stone lace of the church was fully covered in gold foil, and the intermediate spaces in cobalt blue. It is said that the Turks set the church on fire to get the gold, but this thing couldn’t have been scientifically proven.
In monastery’s courtyard, the first superior school of Greek and Paleo-Slavonic was founded in 1640, later on called the “Vasiliană Academy”, where the first book in Romanian was printed in Moldavia (“Varlaam’s Sermon”). The monastic ensemble also comprises the Gothic Museum or the Gothic Hall named this way after the interior vaults in pointed arch, marked by stone ribs. In the same courtyard there is a bust of the poet Mihai Eminescu, who lived here for a while.
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The long road of Saint Paracheva’s relics to Iași
Initially, the saint’s relics were placed in the St. Apostles Church in Epivat, in the east of today’s Bulgaria, where they accomplished many miracles. In 1238, they were moved to Târnovo, after that to Belgrade in 1396, and in 1521 they were placed in the Pammakaristos Church in Istanbul, transformed afterwards into a mosque. In 1639, the Prince of Moldavia, Vasile Lupu, built the Three Hierarchs Monastery and wished to endow his foundation with the Saint Parascheva’s relics. He received them as a sign of gratitude in 1641, after having paid the debts of the Constantinople Patriarchate. The moment of depositing the coffin at Three Hierarchs Church is displayed on a mosaic inside the church, where the Prince of Moldavia is depicted next to the boyar suite and the clerics. Since 1889, the relics were moved to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Iasi, in a richly adorned canopy.
4. Saint Nicholas Princiary Church