Arbore Monastery

At Arbore, in Suceava county, the Church of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist was built in 1502 by Luca Arbore, the governor of Suceava. The founder built it next to his residence, as a place of prayer and family necropolis. The painted church is part of the UNESCO world heritage and is today the center of Arbore Monastery.

The facades preserve religious scenes arranged in registers, and the long roof stretches over the body of the church, without a central spire. The painting and the tombs of the founder's family are the main landmarks of the monument. In 2026, the restoration work was accompanied by research on the bones attributed to the Arbore family and their reburial in the church. The ensemble thus preserves both the testimony of a noble foundation from the beginning of the sixteenth century, and an important cycle of mural painting. The visit inside is adapted to the religious activity of the monastery.

The exterior painting and the roof of the church at Arbore. Archive photo (2010): Cezar Suceveanu / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0. Cropped and resized.