Voronet Monastery                   

       A nun monastery consecrated to St.George, Voronet lies at walking distance from the Gura Humorului town. An old Romanian chronicle written by Ion Neculce records that Stephen the Great founded Voronet Monastery in 1488 to fulfil a pledge to the hermit Daniil who had encouraged the ruling prince of Moldavia to chase the Turks from Wallachia. After having won the battle against the Turks, Stephen erected Voronet in three months and 21 days, on the very spot Daniil had his small wooden hermitage.
      Its interior and exterior paintings were made later on, between 1534-1535, during prince Petru Rares' rule and at the behest of Metropolitan Grigore Rosca, a salient scholar of his time, who also added to it a porch in 1547.
Voronet Monastery is probably the most accomplished sample of artistic achievement in Moldavian architecture and painting. The monastery was built at a time of peace with the Turks, when Stephen had centralized the state, giving a new impetus to its economy and culture.
      The Church has a trefoil form proper to the medieval Moldavian architectural style, predominantly Byzantine. Voronet is quite impressive by its size, i.e. 25.50 m long (apart from the porch), and 7.70 m wide. The doors of the porch have a Renaissance framing, whereas the stone carvings of the broken arches at doors and windows belong to the Gothic style. The existence of exterior butresses signal a Romanic and Gothic architectural influence in the strengthening of constructions, and hence the affiliation to western styles of art.
      The paintings on the church walls which have been made by masters whose names remained unknown, except that of Marcu, master painter, whose name is inscribed on the left side of the entrance door, have a distinctive chromatic harmony, a special manner of composition, nerve and clarity. They are imbued with the softness and warmth of the Moldavian spirit, whereas their colours were drawn from the surrounding nature abounding in blue and green.
    Voronet Monastery has been dubbed the "Oriental Sistine Chapel", whereas Voronet blue, a colour obtained from lapis lazuli entered the lexicon of art alongside Titian red and Veronese green.
      The artistic approach of painters has a warm humanism, as religious scenes depict Moldavian living people of those times. Thus the angels of the frescoes have the sweet faces of Moldavian women, the archangels blow the bucium - a Romanian shepherd's musical instrument similar to an alpenhorn-, the souls carried to heaven are wrapped in Moldavian towels, whereas the souls doomed to the fire of hell wear turbans just like the Turks - Moldavia's fierce enemies at the time.
      The "Last Judgement" painted on the western wall of the church is probably the finest composition among the paintings of the monasteries in Moldavia. In the fire of hell (a grand funnel of live coals opening at the feet of Jesus), sinners among whom, illustrious characters, kings, popes are struggling their way out. Near the seat of judgement, Adam and Eve are represented, along with bands of prophets, hierarchs, martyrs and Moses. In another illustration, a hand is holding the scales of justice where the sins of mankind judgement are being weighed.