Holiday Memories - Eleventh Day -Mraconia Monastery

Mraconia Monastery

 

 Mraconia Monastery was built on the place where originally existed a point of observation and management of shipping on the Danube; due to the architectural relief because of the parochialism of the pass, here and there, could not happen the simultaneous passage of two boats. That maximum expansion and shrinking of the river received the name "Cazanele Dunarii"; after the opinion of many people, this is the most beautiful place in the country.

 

 The place on which it was built was called "the bubble", because the point of observation there. The word "Mraconia" means "corner" or "dark water". Mraconia Monastery knew all the hostilities of the history, starting from the devastations of the invaders, the presents for the Ottoman Gate, foreign domination and, in the end, to be swallowed by water. The original monastery was built in 1523 under the jurisdiction of the Diocese Varset by the leader of the border region of Caransebes and Lugoj, governor Nicola Garlisteanu. The church received the patron Sfantul Prooroc Ilie.

 

 Mraconia Monastery existed there since around the half of the XVth century. It is said to be founded in 1453 and rebuilt after 1800. Documentary attested in 1453, Mraconia Monastery was destroyed during the Austro-Russo-Turkish war between 1787 and 1792, being demolished and rebuilt again in 1968.
Although Mraconia Monastery was damaged over time, in 1788 it was still inhabited, and in 1800, the interior plaster was still visible. Following the establishment of an Action Committee, in 1931was started the rebuilding of the monastery and, due to intense activity of the monah Alexe Udrea, in 1947 it led to a new construction of the church, covering it with shingle. Nobody knows how far it came with the construction, but it is known that the ruins were covered by the waters of the Danube in the retained in the perimeter of the accumulation lake of Portile de Fier.