Saint Sabbas Church, Iași

Once their request was granted, the monks built a church dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God, along with cells, thus forming a monastery.

[2] Due to the monastery's wealth, the administration of Moldavian properties belonging to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was located there until the 1863 secularization of monastic estates in Romania.

[1] Problems with the land on which it was built caused the first church to deteriorate rapidly, a process accelerated by the Tatar invasion of 1624.

[1] Another theory holds that the church burned in early April 1616, along with all but 600 of the city's 20,000 houses, in a fire caused by Ștefan IX Tomșa.

[1] In 1676-1678, Prince Antonie Ruset, a distant relative of Caragea's, rebuilt the surrounding wall, of which the eastern part still survives.

Archaeological excavations carried out in 1976-1979 found that the original church was quite similar to the second one, that the newer one was built further to the north and that both were used as burial grounds including over 300 graves.

Such historical amnesia had the approval of the church, which benefited from substantial contributions in exchange for allowing donors to claim the status of founders.

[1] The church features a two-room museum that includes 80 books from the 18th and 19th centuries and valuable religious objects such as a Polish-inscribed bell from 1570, an aër from 1842 with Greek writing, an 18th-century wool curtain sewn in Byzantine style, 19th-century vestments, icons and liturgical items.

[1] The church is listed as a historic monument by Romania's Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs, as are the nearby ruins and the protective wall.