Mănăstirea Putna

History

Stephen the Great founded Putna in 1466 as an act of thanksgiving after taking the Kilia citadel, and had it consecrated in 1470; he chose it as his own burial place, and it still holds his tomb along with those of several family members. Under his long reign it grew into one of Moldavia's leading centers of religious art, producing richly embroidered icon veils and tomb covers now considered among the finest surviving examples of the period's craftsmanship — including a late-14th-century silk-and-gold epitaphion by a Serbian nun, Euphemia, one of the oldest embroidered textiles in the region. Generations of Romanians have referred to Putna simply as "the Jerusalem of the Romanian people," a measure of how central Stephen's cult became to national memory. It remains an active monastery and pilgrimage site, and today also marks the starting point of the long-distance Via Transilvanica trail.