Hancu Monastery was raised up on a nuns’ hermitage in 1678 by the Great High Steward Mihail Hancu due to the wish of one of his daughters, who accepted monasticism under the name of Parascheva. The hermitage had the name of Viadica until the 17th century.

Because of the Tartars invasion, the nuns left the hermitage for another place approximately at the half of the 18th century. After the Russian army arrived in Basarabia under the command of Field Marshall Rumeantev in 1770-1772, the first Hancu family successors asked the hieromonah Varlaam from the Varzaresti Monastery to take care of the abandoned hermitage. Varlaam together with a group of monks, who came with him, took care of the household, and repaired the cells and in time the monastery became a living place for the monks.

In 1817 all the monks at the monastery were Moldovans, who took the habit being hallowed by the Husi bishops and the Metropolitan Bishop of Moldova. They all had good connections with the hermitages and the monasteries from all over Moldova and the Athos mountain. There were three Russian hieromonks in the monastery as well, who ran away from the liberal stream of Queen Catherine the Second. The books for the church and the manuscripts were written in Romanian.

Back in 1817 the church was built of wood, fenced, glued with clay and whitewashed. The roof of the church was made of shingle. Also, it had a belfry attached to the church. The church had an iconostasis of wood with delving flowers gilt with gold. The walls inside of the church were fashioned with many beautiful icons, 8 of which were painted on planks of wood and gilt with gold.

Hancu was the first monastic settlement of Basarabia, where the community life was introduced approximately in 1820-1822.

Both, the inner life of the hermitage, and its community household, developed significantly during the supervision of abbot Dosoftei, Bulgarian by origin. Since its existence, more precisely at the beginning of 1836, the hermitage is considered to be a monastery. On the place where the wooden church was standing, he raised up in 1835 a church built in stone with the festival Saint Pious Parascheva, but in 1841 he had built another one dedicated to the Holy Virgin Dormition festival. He built cells for the monks as well, brought water into the monastery and took care of the administration bettering.

At the end of the 19th century, the monastery was known under the name of Hancul-Parascheva.

The lands, the fortune and the buildings of the monastery were nationalized in 1944, but in 1965 the monastery had been closed and the monks were chased away.

In 1978 the monastic ensemble was distributed to the Institute of Medicine from Chisinau that set working a sanatorium for people suffering of tuberculosis and opened a leisure station for students and employees. Saint Pious Parascheva summer church was later turned into a club.

Hancu Monastery was re-established as a place for monks in 1990. There is no information about the activity of the monks during those two years they have spent in the monastery. In 1992 the community of monks was abolished.

In the spring of 1992 the monastery for nuns is being established at Hancu. On the 10th of September, 1992, the reconstruction of the monastery was started. In 1993 the reparation of Holy Virgin Dormition winter church had been finished. The church was framed within the body of the priory, which was built in 1841. It was painted provisionally and hallowed in the same year. In 1998 the interior of the church was repainted.

Saint Pious Parascheva summer church was erected in 1835 and repaired not earlier than 1996.

Three old buildings raised up in 1841 remain untouched on the monastery’s territory. Nuns and sisters started living there after a major overhaul. The number of the ones living there estimates 58 in 1995.

Translated from Romanian by Leca Olga, Moldova.ORG