The pisania on the southern wall of the church

Spiritual and political considerations motivated Petru Rares to build at Probota. Rares was an illegitimate son and, once in power, he continued the great works of his father and affirmed his blood relationship to the Musat dynasty.

Rares built the St. Nicholas church as a token of faith. At the time, the Church was a large landowner controlling villages, forests and fields and the wealth accrued from them. Three months after ascending the throne, he also gave a village to the monastery. Records do not specify the village.

The Metropolitan Grigorie Rosca, previously the Father Superior at Probota, encouraged Petru Rares to build a new church for the monastery. Rares took the advice of his cousin and construction started in 1528.

Rares built the St. Nicholas Church with a concern for his spiritual well-being as well. It would serve as his family's mausoleum. The large and elaborate crypts and the elegant mural paintings within the church serve as evidence, and several members of Petru Rares' family have been buried there.

In the church he laid among others his son, Ioan, who died as a child. A nearby picture depicts young Ioan being introduced to St. Nicholas. A painted inscription accompanying this picture reads "1532" suggesting that the church was painted in the same year.

However, the information as to the exact date of the mural paintings of the church remains incomplete. Too few written documents survive to corroborate other clues. Perhaps new archaeological research will enable the historians to replace hypotheses with final conclusions.

Historians know that three other churches preceded the Church of St. Nicholas, the church which stands today. The first church is referred to in a document dating back to 1398. Its location has not been found, although one document suggests somewhere "by the old graveyard".

The second church was built by Stephen the Great downhill from the first one, according to another document, "by the river, in the valley". Construction was completed sometime before the burial of his parents Bogdan II (1452) and Oltea-Maria (1465).

This second church had a mixed plan with a square pronaos and walls more than 3 metres thick. The apses were simply hollowed out of the walls. Despite the massive walls, the church crumbled some decades later. These ruins were excavated in 1952 and 1973.

The remains of a third church, built on the same site, were also unearthed. This new church, Probota III, was longer and narrower than the stolid church it replaced. Archaeologists plainly saw their overlapping foundations. Probota III was more Gothic, more typical of the Moldavian style during the reign of Stephen the Great. Fragments of mural paintings were found both inside and outside, but it is difficult to say whether the church was painted on the outside or not. Bogdan II and Oltea-Maria were possibly reintered in Probota III but also this church was abandoned. A landslide made the church unusable.

The ruins of Probota II and Probota III

In 1550, additions were made to the Probota Monastery. A masonry wall was built to protect it. A gate tower inscription states that this construction was carried out by Petru Rares’ widow Elena and their sons. The monastery prospered for several decades.

The stone inscription on the gate-tower

In 1622 bandits plundered the monastery. Soon after it was set on fire. The massive damage inflicted, however, was quite unusual. In 1646 Prince Vasile Lupu strengthened the fortifications, built a refectory and rebuilt the roofs. In 1671 Dosoftei, Metropolitan of Moldavia, resumed the work of Vasile Lupu, and in 1677 the Probota monastery was dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

The Greek monks had the monastery under their administration ever since the dedication. Around or before 1844, they over-painted the interiors, whitewashed the exteriors and closed the large Gothic windows of the exonarthex and pronaos. The monastery began to fail after the secularisation and land reforms of 1863. The land holdings of the Church were broken up and the monks found themselves without a satisfactory means of supporting themselves. The monastery was offically disbanded and the church handed over for parish use. In 1872, Bishop Melchisedec found the monastery abandoned and in ruins. Soon after, the buildings restored by Dosoftei were burnt down.

The church with the windows of the exonarthex and pronaos walled in

In the early 1920’s, St. Nicholas served as a simple parish church. During this era, the roofs of the church, the steeple and the gate tower were remade. In 1929-1930 the Direction of Historical Monuments restored the bench encircling the exterior of the church and the buttresses using concrete mortar. Some deteriorated blocks of stone were also replaced.

In 1934-1937, the Direction carried out a far-reaching restoration project. The precinct walls were consolidated and the roof of the church was rebuilt. Three rows of bricks were added on top of the stone profile at the base of the church. The windows of the exonarthex and pronaos, walled up since 1844, were restored to their original shape and size. Missing decorative parts were remade. These were modelled after the original fragments from the windows of the exonarthex and from the Church of St. Demetrius in Suceava.

In 1959, repair work was carried out in the lantern tower of the church. In 1974 the Direction started another large programme of restoration, but could only direct some archaeological excavations, the consolidation of the precinct walls, and the restoration of the princely house and the steeple. In 1977, Nicolae Ceausescu, President of Romania, dissolved the Direction of Historical Monuments and stopped its work.

During the 1980's the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia resumed repair of the vaults, archways and the upper part of the walls, and the rebuilding of the roof. In 1990 the monastery reopened after an interim period of nearly 130 years, this time as a convent for nuns.