Moldavia

July 2 marks the commemoration of 510 years since the death of Moldovan ruler Stephen the Great (ruling between 1457-1504), one of the most important Romanian figures of the Middle Ages.

On June 20, 1992, he was sanctified by the Romanian Orthodox Church as Pious Voivode Stephen the Great and Holy.

The Soroca settlement is first recorded in a document dated 1499. The foundation is attributed to Stephen the Great, who would have ordered the building of a citadel on the right bank of the Dnester River, on the site of Alciona, an old Genoa fortress.

Genoa merchants on the site of a former Greek colony called Tyras built the fortress on the right banks of the Dnester River of stone in the 13th century; it was rebuilt under the rule of Alexander the Good (1400-1432) and equipped with a new system of battlements under Stephen the Great.

The most important construction in the defence system of mediaeval Moldavia, the Hotin Citadel was re-conquered by Stephen the Great in mid-15th century from the Poles, and enlarged several times. One of many legends about this citadel, located at the borders of the Dnester River, has it that a Dacian king had chosen the site.

A foundation of Petre I Musat (1375-1391), the citadel, for the first time recorded on February 10, 1388, was equipped with interior walls around the old fort on an order of Stephen the Great.

Considered a "testament in stone" of Stephen the Great, the church of Volovat is the penultimate foundation of the Moldavian ruler.

This is the church that best defines the Moldavian style of religious architecture.

Also known as the Tower of Stephen, the bell tower, along with St. John the Baptist Church, in its close proximity, make up the Royal Court architectural compound of Piatra Neamt. More elegant than any other similar structures erected by Stephen the Great, the tower of Piatra Neamt was built of unpolished stones, one year after the consecration of the church on October 28, 1499.

Stephen the Great and Holy's tomp is placed in the funerary vaults conceived as a passage towards the nave through two massive columns. Built on the ruler's order 12 years before his death, the tomb of the Pious Ruler Stephen is located in the southern part of the funerary vaults.

The first and most important religious foundation of the great ruler, the construction of the Putna Monastery was started on July 10, 1466, one year after the conquest of the Chilia castle, on the place of a wooden church.