View of the monastery church from east with the fortress walls

The walls surrounding the Probota Monastery rise five metres high. Small loopholes in the walls and two square towers at the corners provided further defense. Only a gate-tower in the middle of the east wall gives access to the fortified compound which measures approximately 90 x 90 metres. A small door now exists in the southern wall, but it is not original.

The fortress walls

Inside, near the north-western corner, stands the princely house with its bell-tower. Opposite, adjacent to the south wall, are buried the monastic buildings, which have been excavated. Slightly off-centred on the east-west axis stands the church, 36.20 x 9.50 m in plan, with a main apse in the east and two lateral ones on the south and north sides. Above the roofline, a beautiful lantern tower rises to a height of 30 metres.

Plan of the church

West-east section of the church

Throughout Christendom churches painted their walls with pictures depicting saints and biblical scenes, but during the Rares period churches were painted both inside and out. Often, the exterior paintings illustrated religious scenes, such as the Celestial Hierarchy or the trials of saints, to instruct the illiterate faithful.

Though protected by the deep eaves under the church roof, the external paintings must endure all weather. Paintings made on the northern walls of churches invariably suffer the most damage. At any painted church in Romania the northern wall is always less vivid than the southern wall. This is explained by the prevailing northern wind which scours these walls.

Despite the weather of a several hundred years, the Probota church stills retains much of its old plasterwork. This rendering smoothed out the entire surface of the church to form a giant canvas.

The gothic windows of the exonarthex

Romanian churches are also distinguished by their floor plans. According to architectural tradition, the building was divided into five parts: exonarthex, pronaos, burial chamber, naos and chancel with its altar behind the iconostasis.

Visitors to the Church of St. Nicholas enter the exonarthex first. Sunlight fills this part of the church. It streams in through eight gothic windows illuminating the lunettes. Paintings cover these half moon shaped sections of wall beneath the arch of the ceiling.

The barrel vault arches from one side of the room to the other. Vaults can carry more weight than straight beams by better transfering the weight of the ceiling to the walls. This is a complicated architectural feat given so much glass.

The builders of church vaulted the ceiling, then channeled the weight on slender piers. These stone columns look ornamental and run between the windows. Outside, two buttresses reinforce the stone walls which otherwise would tend to bow outwards under the load of stone and roofing.

Probota Open

The square room with four large windows beyond the exonarthex is the pronaos. Its most notable features are the two beautiful domes set on a star-shaped system of intersecting arches.

The burial chamber is a rectangular room. Only two small windows in the north and south walls admit light. Three tombs, set on stone bases, called socles, inter the remains of the church's builder and his family. Tombstones mark each of these tombs including the final resting place of Voivode - Prince - Petru Rares.

Finally, there is the naos with two semicircular apses. Both of these recesses features a half-dome. Over the main floor of the naos, a large dome with four arches supports the lantern tower above. Here in the naos, the heart of the church, stands the iconostasis. This ornamental wall of icons divides the naos from the chancel. Before it the faithful worship. The priesthood, admitted through the doors in the iconostasis, conduct the Mass from behind it in the chancel. In the middle of the room is a stone altar used during the ceremony.

The Princely House

The Princely House is a well preserved 16^th century civilian building. It rises two stories tall near the western extremity of the northern wall. Its architectural style is quite simple. All rooms have barrel vaults, windows and doors framed in stone with carved geometrical motifs as decoration. On the outside, some fragments remain of the original painted geometrical motifs.

A stone staircase leads up to the bell tower from the Princely House. There was traffic up and down the bell tower several times a day to signal services, prayers and like church functions. While called the Princely House, the true function of the building remains speculative.

Prince Petru Rares probably spent little time at Probota. After the 16^th century royalty did not visit at all. Even on rare visits, he probably would not reside beneath clanging bells. Archaeologists hypothesize that the building may have stored liturgical paraphernalia such as vessels and clothes, or been a treasury. Perhaps further excavation will reveal more clues.