The Three Holy Hierarchs (St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian and St. John Chrysostom) Monastery was designed as a traditional monastic settlement and it is one of the most famous complexes of Romanian Medieval art, a legendary architectural masterpiece that has never ceased to enchant visitors from all over the world. Its current appearance is the result of the restoration works that took place from 1882 to 1904 under the supervision of the French architect André Lecomte de Noüy.

The restorations works preserved the outside structure, which has ensured the uniqueness of this monastery among other illustrative monuments of Romanian ecclesiastical architecture. Many significant changes were made during restoration, both in the church and the adjacent buildings, yet they did not affect the initial architectural design, nor the stone embroidery of the façades. The painting of this holy place, as well as the entire interior decoration, date back to the same period of the last restoration. The furniture, commissioned by King Charles I and Queen Elizabeth, the new founders of the church, was designed by the same French architect and made in Vienna.

The Outside of the Church

A magnificent stone embroidery covers the outer church in its entirety. It is made up of individually minutely carved blocks of stone, joined together by molten lead, in a wonderful harmony of completely different styles. Under different circumstances, this style that borrows Caucasian, Byzantine, Gothic and baroque elements could have produced an artistic failure; here, instead, it gave birth to a notable identity, a real masterpiece, The Three Hierarchs Monastery.

The exterior ornaments (originally gold plated) cover the church completely and they combine Turkish, Arabic, Georgian, Armenian and Persian elements with Romanian architectural patterns in a spectacular stone embroidery. More than thirty strips of ornamental patterns adorn the church from bottom to the top of the spires, and none of them occurs twice.

Persian vases, framed by Russian pilasters, solar disks resembling those sculptured on the Maramures gates, exotic flower patterns, and universal mystical symbols combine in perfect harmony with elements inspired from the traditional Romanian sculpture, folk embroidery and wood carvings.

The Inside of the Church

The plan of the Three Hierarchs Monastery is typical for 17^th century Moldavian churches, and it comprises the porch, the narthex, the nave and the altar. The church has two towers, one above the nave and the other above the narthex.

The porch has two entrances, one to the north and the other to the south, and is overhung by two small vaults. Access to the narthex is made through a portal-like door, surrounded by five Gothic-looking mouldings and two rectangular frames. The bronze door features the twelve Apostles in bas-relief. Above the door there is the icon of the Three Holy Hierarchs, made of gold plated mosaic.

In the original architecture, the narthex was separated from the nave by a massive wall, replaced during the restoration works by three arcades supported by two pillars. One should notice that the angles of the narthex walls as well as the angles between the walls and the vaults are closed by the same ornamental twisted band to be found in the external decoration. The lateral walls of the narthex shelter four tombs, two on each side, dug as vault-like niches. Here lie the remains of the founders’ family as well as those of Prince Dimitrie Cantemir and of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza. The tombs are covered by massive tombstones of decorated black marble.

The relics of Saint Paraskeve, given to Prince Vasile Lupu for his generous help to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, were brought from Constantinople and put in a niche that had been created especially for this purpose; this niche is decorated with marble, precious stones and mosaics that illustrate the Saint’s life.

Nowadays, St. Paraskeve’s relics can be worshipped in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Iasi, while the niche in the church of the Three Hierarchs shelters St. Basil the Great’s relics, offered as a gift to Prince Vasile Lupu in 1650. Seized by the communist officials in 1975, the relics of the great hierarch were returned to the town of Iasi on the 28^th of December 2000.

The iconostasis of the church dates back to the end of the 19^thp century, when the old one, that had been severely deteriorated, had to be replaced. The new iconostasis was sculptured in Carrara marble and decorated with mosaics and enamels. The votive candles, the candlesticks as well as the other pieces of furniture date back to the same period of the last restoration and were made of bronze studded with ivory and precious stones.

The altar has two spacious niches: the proskomid niche and the vestry, and it fits the architectural design of the church. The walls are decorated with the icons of the Three Holy Hierarchs, framed by cable columns.