Comana Monastery: A Fortified Orthodox Monastery and Burial Place in Romania
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Romania
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Principality of Wallachia
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Fortified Monastery
On this page14 sections
History
Comana Monastery is an Orthodox monastery of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Comana, Romania, founded in 1461 by Vlad Țepeș, also known as Vlad III Dracula, as a fortified religious complex. Vlad was a fifteenth-century prince of Wallachia, the historical principality that included much of present-day southern Romania. A charter issued by his chancery on 27 September 1461 defined the monastery’s possessions. Archaeological and documentary evidence places a necropolis around a small church dating from the second half of the fifteenth or the first half of the sixteenth century.
Foundation and rebuilding under Radu Șerban
The original monastery had fallen into ruin by the end of the sixteenth century. In 1588–1589, the boyar Radu Șerban rebuilt it with the surviving ruins, especially the enclosure wall. Radu Șerban, a Wallachian prince of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, gave the renewed complex defensive walls and five towers. The rebuilt monastery measured approximately 61 by 56 metres.
Radu Șerban also commissioned the painting of the entrance wall of the Church of Saint Nicholas with a portrait of himself and his wife, Elina. After he became prince in 1609, princely insignia were added to his painted representation. Radu Șerban died in Vienna in 1620 after losing the Wallachian throne and was buried in Saint Stephen’s Church there.
A princely foundation becomes a family burial place
The monastery’s role changed through a series of reburials. Radu Șerban’s son-in-law, Nicolae Pătrașcu, the son of Michael the Brave, died in 1627 and was first buried in the Serbian church at Raab, now Győr in Hungary. In 1640, Anca and her sister Elina brought the remains of both Radu Șerban and Nicolae Pătrașcu back to Wallachia and reburied them at Comana. A communal tomb slab was installed after 1640.
Further burials connected Comana with the Cantacuzino family, a prominent Wallachian boyar and princely family. Drăghici Cantacuzino was buried at the monastery in 1667 after dying in Constantinople and being brought back by his son, the boyar Șerban Cantacuzino. Drăghici’s son Constantin was later buried there, as recorded by a tomb inscription from 1699. Maria, Șerban Cantacuzino’s first wife, was also buried at Comana.
The remains of Mihail Pătrașcu, Anca’s son, were reinterred at Comana after he died of plague in 1655 in the Cossack regions, probably about seven years later. Anca probably died shortly before 1668. These successive burials transformed Comana from a princely foundation into a burial place and family crypt for the Drăghici branch of the Cantacuzino family. In 1699, Șerban Cantacuzino donated a silver reliquary commemorating Drăghici and Păuna, Maria, and Adriana, whose burials were associated with the monastery.
The Cantacuzino rebuilding
Șerban Cantacuzino began a major rebuilding and restoration at Comana in 1699. The principal work was completed by 1700, and in 1703 he returned to construct and strengthen a chapel within the enclosure. The work followed building practices associated with the cultural renewal under the Wallachian princes Matei Basarab, Șerban Cantacuzino, and Constantin Brâncoveanu. It added new monastic cells to the existing ones, repaired and heightened the enclosure walls, and moved earlier family burials into a communal tomb.
The rebuilding also replaced the earlier founder’s inscription. The new inscription named Șerban Cantacuzino among the monastery’s founders while commemorating Radu Șerban as the first founder of the rebuilt complex. Șerban Cantacuzino died in August 1709 and was buried at Comana. Greek monks destroyed his tomb and other graves in 1854, and the location of his grave is no longer known. The destruction probably also affected Nicolae Pătrașcu’s tomb.
Decline, restoration, and unresolved burial tradition
In 1728, Prince Nicolae Mavrocordat placed Comana Monastery under the authority of the Holy Sepulchre because the founder’s direct heirs were no longer available to care for it. The monastery subsequently lost part of its estates and wealth. Its deterioration continued during the Phanariot period, a period when princes appointed by the Ottoman authorities ruled Wallachia. Donation deeds issued between 1728 and 1814 reflect this prolonged decline.
In 1847, the state architect Schlatter proposed rebuilding the complex because ordinary repairs were considered insufficient. Fundamental rebuilding of the church began in 1854. The entire architectural complex was restored under the care of the Historical Monuments Commission in 1908, but it later deteriorated again, particularly after the Second World War.
Archaeological work in the 1970s uncovered a headless body near the foundations of the present monastery. It may have belonged to Vlad Țepeș, whom some historians believe was buried at Comana near the place where he was killed, while other researchers place his burial at Snagov. The question remains unresolved because the burial was carried out secretly. In 1971, rebuilding of the nineteenth-century church revealed a fragment of a funerary stone identifying the tomb of Anca, Radu Șerban’s daughter.
Major restoration works continued from 1970 to 1977 but were interrupted in 1978 after the Directorate of Historical Monuments was dissolved. Earthquakes in 1977 and 1986 seriously damaged the church, which was fully consolidated between 1988 and 1990. In 2008, the interiors of the princely residence and princely cellars were restored with assistance from the Giurgiu Diocese. A large restoration program began in 2011 with co-financing through Romania’s Regional Operational Programme and the European Regional Development Fund. Comana is currently a monks’ monastery and has Mironești Hermitage as its dependent monastery. The complex is included in Romania’s List of Historic Monuments under code GR-II-a-A-14967.
First World War cemetery and mausoleum
In autumn 1916, German forces commanded by Field Marshal Anton Ludwig August von Mackensen established a field cemetery inside the monastery enclosure for soldiers killed in fighting on the Neajlov. The cemetery contained 516 soldiers: 417 unidentified and four identified Romanians, 13 unidentified Germans, 51 unidentified Bulgarians, and 31 unidentified Turks.
In 1919, the Heroes’ Cult Society decided to build a mausoleum within the monastery, following recommendations associated with the historian Nicolae Iorga. Construction took place from 1926 to 1932. The mausoleum was built on the ruins of the former monastic chapel. It is separately listed as the Mausoleum of the Heroes Fallen in the First World War under code GR-II-m-A-14967.06.
After 2008, an attempt to convert the mausoleum into a winter chapel involved breaking through the floor and reaching the heroes’ crypt. The work stopped after the police were notified. The intervention exposed the crypt and its human remains, preserving the mausoleum’s connection with the wartime cemetery.
Remains
Island setting and fortified enclosure
Comana Monastery was originally built on an island surrounded by marshes. The Neajlov River passes east of Comana village, crosses the Comana marsh, divides into a branch in front of the monastery, circles the island, and then rejoins its former course. The northern approach originally crossed a wooden bridge that could be set on fire in danger, followed by a gate in the northern side of the enclosure.
The late-sixteenth-century rebuilding created an enclosure approximately 61 by 56 metres, protected by defensive walls and five towers. The original complex survives in part. The north and west sides of the monastic cells have been restored, while the eastern wall and a fragment attached to a tower remain in ruins.
Church and monastic buildings
Church of Saint Nicholas
The Church of Saint Nicholas stands within the enclosure. Its entrance wall once carried the donor painting of Radu Șerban and Elina, and the later addition of princely insignia altered Radu Șerban’s painted representation after his accession in 1609. The church was rebuilt in the nineteenth century and later consolidated after damage caused by the earthquakes of 1977 and 1986.
Cells and open loggia
The rebuilding of 1699–1703 added monastic cells to the earlier cells and strengthened the enclosure walls. The north side received an elegant open loggia. Ten monolithic hard-stone columns rise from its balustrade along three sides. Their bases and capitals carry vegetal ornament, while the two end columns are embedded in the building wall and have capitals decorated with the Cantacuzino double-headed eagle. The columns support semicircular brick arches.
Princely residence and cellars
The princely residence and the princely cellars form part of the monastic complex. Their interiors were restored in 2008, preserving these spaces as elements of the later residential and institutional development of Comana.
Communal tomb
A communal tomb contains the reinterred remains of members of the Radu Șerban and Cantacuzino families. The tomb of Anca, daughter of Radu Șerban, was identified through the inscription on a funerary-stone fragment found in 1971 during work on the nineteenth-century church.
First World War mausoleum
The First World War mausoleum stands in the monastery courtyard beside the church, on the ruins of the former monastic chapel. It is rectangular, 4.5 metres high, 14.5 metres long, and 6.5 metres wide, with a two-pitched roof. Its main ossuary facade uses architectural elements associated with Comana Monastery, including columns, an arcade, and decorated capitals.
An ossuary is a structure or chamber used to house human bones. The mausoleum’s crypt initially held the remains of 564 soldiers, including 24 identified and 540 unidentified individuals. Marble plaques carried the names of the identified soldiers, while several verses by the poet Mircea Rădulescu were carved in white marble at the entrance. A 1943 record stated that the mausoleum contained the remains of 762 soldiers, placed in the crypt and in individual niches. The later attempt to convert the building into a chapel exposed the crypt and its human remains.
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