Three Movilă brothers built the Church of the Resurrection of Suceviţa around 1583. The church is the only painted church that was not founded by a ruling prince, although the Movilăs were descendants of Petru Rareş on their mother's side. Quite soon after the monastery was built Ieremia Movilă became the ruler of Moldavia, and his brother Simion reigned in Walachia. The third brother, Gheorghe, who was during that period the Bishop of Rădăuţi, rose to become the Metropolitan of Moldavia. The church was painted around 1595, nearly half a century after its "sister" churches. It is considered the last flowering of the custom of painting the church façades that mark the reigns of Stephen the Great and Petru Rareş. Building and painting a church that closely resembled the edifices their ancestors raised decades before, was a way for the Movilăs to claim to be part of the royal line of Stephen the Great.

At the same time, though, the monastic compound of Suceviţa and its buildings herald the architectural innovations of the following century. The Church of the Resurrection, although still built on the model of the classic Moldavian church with its five rooms, shows the first new architectural tendencies: smaller niches, and three bases for the tower. On either side of the exonarthex are two small open porches of Walachian influence. The porches were added quite soon after the church was built, by Ieremia Movila himself. The votive painting in the naos shows a small porch on the south façade of the model of the church that the Prince holds in his hand. The two porches are not identical. The frescoes are very remarkable, colourful and well preserved. The number of scenes and personages is higher than in any other church in Moldavia. Unlike most other cases, the names of the painters are known: the brothers Ion and Sofronie, who carried out the work from 1595 to 1596. During the first phase of the Moldavian murals, under Stephen the Great, the stress had been on the concentrated transmission of the religious message through symbols. During the first half of the 16th century the stress fell on ample dramatic compositions. During the last phase, in Sucevita, the compositions were much smaller, but also more narrative. It seems that the stress here was on teaching the faithful the meaning of religion through biblical stories.