“Adormirea Maicii Domnului” Monastery from Călărășeuca

If you want to visit a special place, full of soul and an unrepeatable natural beauty, you must visit the “Assumption of the Blessed Virgin” Monastery in Călărășeuca. Located in the Calarașovca Nature Reserve, 5-6 km from the town of Otaci.

The monastery is located at the exit of the gorge and is surrounded by 3 parts of rocks and forest. At the top of one of the rocks is the cave hermitage and the cross installed next to it. The monastery from Călărășeuca is a place of nuns. The exact date of the monastery's founding is unknown. According to legend, in the cave near the location of the current monastery lived a hermit monk, who founded a monastic hermitage. It is believed that at the end of the 16th century - the beginning of the 17th century, the first wooden church was built here.

In 1747 Maria Cantacuzino donated land from her vow to the hermitage. In 1780, with the help of Marcu Donici from Movilau, who received the blessing of the Patriarch of Jerusalem Abraham, the stone church was built, dedicated to the Assumption, which was consecrated in 1782.

In 1813 the hermitage was transformed into a monastery and became subordinate to the diocese of Chisinau, but economically it depended for a time on the monastery of St. Sava in Iasi.

In 1853, with the contribution of General Nicolai Cerkez and Elena Cantacuzino, a wooden church was built on the territory of the monastery. The church was consecrated in the same year as St. Mitrofan de Voronezh. The church was rebuilt in 1911 in Russian style, in stone, under the abbot of Abbot John.

In 1916, during the First World War, the monks from Călărășeuca were moved to the Dobrușa monastery, and in their place the nuns from the Polish city of Wirow were brought to Călărășeuca, together with the abbess Ambrosia.