About this place
Condrița Monastery is a men's monastery dedicated to Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker. It lies on the bank of the Cotargă River, and the road there passes through picturesque places past the Ialoveni Reservoir, hills, fields and the mighty Moldovan forests of Codri.
Settlement: village Condrița, Strășeni district
Monastery church: Saint Nicholas
Year founded: approximately 1783
Elder: Archpriest Viaceslav (Spac), mitred
When you visit the monastery, you expect a certain solemnity, perhaps even some pathos, both from its inhabitants and from the place itself. It seems that even the birds should fall silent in reverence, and instead of chirping, only hover quietly around the church domes.
Many people try to fit visits to all of these monasteries into one trip, but it is better to spend a whole day at Condrița. It is not as promoted and luxurious as Căpriana, there are no lavish weddings and no idly wandering foreigners, but there is silence, clean air and an extraordinary tranquility.
The men's Condrița Monastery, in honour of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, has a long history. Its origin, as with most Moldovan monasteries, is tied to a legend. According to tradition, the haiduk Condrea, who had cost many lives in battles and fights, decided to return to peaceful life fully cleansed. He found a monk, who ordered him, as atonement for his sins, to water a dry stump until branches grew on it. The monk must have highly valued the old haiduk's transgressions, since the task was made harder by the fact that the water for watering had to be carried in his mouth. Still, Condrea did not lose heart and eagerly set to work. Do you understand that if he had failed, there would be no legend? True, history does not say how many days this miracle took, but the stump blossomed. In gratitude, the exhausted Condrea founded a church on this spot. Here the legend ends its account and the facts begin. The late 18th century, more precisely 1783.
On Moldovan soil already stands Căpriana Monastery, on whose land hieromonk Iosif founded
