The legends of Chiajna Monastery

                                                        

Ruins

                       

I promised to come back with more details about Chiajna Monastery, located in Romania. For a start we have this: a plague epidemic, a triple murder and a bunch of legends. The first strange thing is that Chiajna Monastery is inscribed in the List of Historical Monuments in Bucharest. Why strange? Let me tell you.

Located close to the Bucharest-Craiova railway, on the edge of the Giulesti-Sarbi neighborhood, near a landfill and in the immediate vicinity of two cemeteries, the construction of the Monastery, 43 meters long and 18 meters high, with 2 meters thick walls, began during the reign of Alexandru Ipsilanti (1780) and was completed during the reign of the Phanariot Nicolae Mavrogheni (1790). It was to be one of the most important Romanian places of worship of the time, but something seemed to stand against it.

We wandered a little on the way to the monastery; had left the car somewhere near one of the two cemeteries that surround the garbage field on which the building is located, so we started walking towards it. We were in the middle of a terrible landscape; dirty, broken bottles, discarded boots, tons of waste in which 2-3 sheeps were trying to find something to eat, a cow and few puppies. A lady saw that we are a bit confused and showed us the way to the monastery, a clogged path, telling us that she does not hear the church songs now, but surely the service is in full swing.. “Service in a monastery that has never been consecrated?”, we looked at each other, embraced in confusion. Then she stood behind us until we reached the thick walls from which bricks still fall as the nearby train passes. When we got there, there were indeed 2 priests, one even had someone confessing inside the ruins of the monastery, among the strange paintings and inscriptions on the walls.

                                                           
                  The legends and the locals say that the monastery is cursed

The monastery was functional in 1792, but was abandoned during the plague epidemic in the time of Mihai Sutu (1793). One of the legends say that the metropolitan of Wallachia himself, Cozma, died due to the plague right inside the church. Priests never served here because Turkish attacks brought the monastery “to her knees” before having the chance to be consecrated, believing that they were destroying a fortress. The bell would have been thrown in Dambovita river, and the archive and the scripts would have been completely burned. The construction, although fragile, stood the passage of time and only lost its dome in the 1977 earthquake.

Frightening stories are told about the Chiajna monastery, how on full moon nights the old bell is heard or how on the right entrance wall, an enigmatic face appears – of a strange beauty, resembling a young lady or an angel. It is rarely spoken of the crimes that took place inside the monastery, one before 1990 and another after, which even the forensics say are based on the “Curse of the Chiajna Monastery”.

Two students at the Polytechnic University in Bucharest, Ionut Bidescu and Marian Tudose, were reported missing in December 1995 after they went to film the ruins of the monastery. Finally, it was found that the clip – Bucharest, 13 (you can find the 3 links here: first part, 2nd part and 3rd part) it was just a college project of some students, but it was a huge success on the internet, being inspired by “The Blair Witch Project”.             

        An urban legend? A cursed place or not?

So far, no one has done anything, and the construction has fallen into disrepair. Some architects believe that the monastery can be restored, because a church built from the ground up would cost much more. It can then be sanctified …

          *Article written in August 2011

Photo Credits: Daria Virbanescu