“The Decapitation of Saint John the Baptizer” Church, Vaslui Town, Vaslui County, Str. Ştefan cel Mare nr. 58 (code LMI 2004: VS-II-m-A-06708)
It was built in 1490 by Stephan the Great as chapel for the royal court on the place of a former church from the 14th century. According to the testimonies of the foreigner travelers, in the 17th century the halidom was painted both on the interior and the exterior in fresco technique. The frescoes from “The Afterlife Judgment” from above the porch and “Jesus the Pantocrator” on the aisle dome were really impressing. It was rebuilt keeping the plan in 1820 by Maria Cantacuzino, the widow of the former great court man Costache Ghica (1745-1818), owner of Vaslui Fair. In 1894, Grigore Ioanid decorates the interior with mural painting. Today’s appearance is due to the restoration works from 1913-1930.
Although it has been transfigured by modern interventions, the church still remains a representative monument for the architecture from the times of Stephan the Great due to the particularities of the super-enlarged narthex – a solution adopted as a model in building the town churches during the reign of the King.
It has a three-apse plan, west entrance, built in stone and brick, braced tile roof previously covered with shingles. The decorative architectural appearance is made of blind arching and vault of stone and apparent brick, disks of enamel ceramics (decorated with the solar motive, the enlarged blazon of Moldavia, fantastic animals), elements of stone profiled in gothic style (base, arched buttresses, cornice, frameworks with openings in broken, ogival and rectangular arches, the latter being marked by rounded and cross vaults). The western façade still has the Slavonic religious inscription, chiseled in stone in 1490.
The measurement of the area and the exterior aspect offer the image of a monument from the times of Stephan the Great while the interior space belongs to the neoclassic 19th century. The vaulting system, sustained on doubloon arches and pillars, is made of a semi-cylindrical arch on narthex and choir, an arch with the walls on nave, semi domes on the altar and the side apses. The Proskcomede and the Diaconicon are deepened in the masonry under the form of niches.
The church shelters cult goods from the 18th – 19th centuries (icons, silvery and religious books) as well as the iconostasis, oil on wood from the 19th century. The necropolis of the family of Elena Şubin, born Ghica, can be found inside the churchyard.
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