Cheia Monastery ( ro, Mănăstirea Cheia) — a

Romanian Orthodox The Romanian Orthodox Church (ROC; ro, Biserica Ortodoxă Română, ), or Patriarchate of Romania, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with other Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, and one of the nine patriarchates i ...

complex located on the right bank of Tâmpa Creek, southeast of Cheia village (itself part of Măneciu commune), in

Prahova County Prahova County () is a county ( județ) of Romania, in the historical region Muntenia, with the capital city at Ploiești. Demographics In 2011, it had a population of 762,886 and the population density was 161/km². It is Romania's third mos ...

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and so ...

region, southeastern Romania. The monastery of monks was dedicated to the

Holy Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

History

Cheia Monastery was originally built out of wood, in 1770. It was destroyed by the

Ottomans The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

in 1777. A new wooden church was built in the early 1800s, but it was ravaged by fire 30 years later. The current monastery church was built of stone between 1835 and 1839. The murals were painted by

Gheorghe Tattarescu Gheorghe Tattarescu (; October 1818 – October 24, 1894) was a Moldavian, later Romanian painter and a pioneer of neoclassicism in his country's modern painting. Biography Early life and studies Tattarescu was born in Focşani in 1818. H ...

in 1837. The monastery suffered during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, when German troops occupied the grounds and destroyed some of the buildings. In 1950, the Communist authorities forced the bishop of

Oradea Oradea (, , ; german: Großwardein ; hu, Nagyvárad ) is a city in Romania, located in Crișana, a sub-region of Transylvania. The county seat, seat of Bihor County, Oradea is one of the most important economic, social and cultural centers in the ...

, into exile at Cheia Monastery, where he died in 1960.

References

External links

Buildings and structures completed in 1839 Romanian Orthodox monasteries of Prahova County Historic monuments in Prahova County {{Romania-EO-church-stub