The “Maria Radna” Roman – Catholic Monastery in Lipova

The Maria Radna monastery in Lipova, Western Romania, was a well-known place even to Pope John Paul 2nd.

România Internațional, 06.02.2016, 14:14

The ‘Maria Radna’
monastery in Lipova, Arad County, in Western Romania, was a well-known place
even to Pope John Paul 2nd, who in 1992 gave it the rank of
‘Basilica Minor’. In the Timisoara Diocese there is a church devoted to the
Holy Virgin, known by the people as ‘Maria Radna’, said the Holy Father about
that church known as early as the Middle Ages as home to Franciscan monks. The
order managed to survive there even during the Ottoman occupation of the region
of Banat between the 16th and the 18th centuries. That
was actually the period when the first documents about the Maria Radna church
appeared.

For more details we talked to father Nicolae Laus, Chancellor of the
Roman – Catholic Bishopric in Timisoara:

According to Turkish documents, there
was a derelict church around 1642 that was renovated, while preserving its
original size. In 1681 the church underwent further repairs. In the 164 year
long Ottoman rule in Banat, there were several battles between the Austrian
imperial armies and the Ottoman army. In 1695, the Turks burned everything to
the ground, and the church in Radna was destroyed in the fire. In 1723, a new,
bigger church was built, but that too proved too small, so that in 1756 plans
were approved for the building of the church we see today.

The most valuable object in the church of Radna
is a miracle-making icon of the Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. Painted on
parchment, the icon miraculously survived the Ottoman fire of 1695, and today
it holds prides of place. Here is father Nicolae Laus with the details:

Nicolae
Laus: According to documents prior to 1750, the icon had been in Radna since
1668. An old inhabitant of Radna, a Bosnian, had bought it from an Italian
merchant and then donated it to the church in Maria Radna. Since 1767 the icon
has been on the sanctuary in the present church whose construction started in
1756. Between 1769 and 1771, jeweler Joseph Moser made an exquisite silver
frame for the icon of Virgin Mary. It was also Joseph Moser who made the big
icon lamp in front of the sanctuary. The frame of the icon can be considered
the most significant work of its kind in the whole of Eastern Europe. And
because in 1895 the old wooden baroque sanctuary was seriously deteriorated, a
decision was made that sculptor Stefan Toth build another one out of Carrara
Marble. Its consecration was connected to the celebration of the bicentennial
of the icon, commemorating the blaze of 1695.

Started in 1756, in time the Maria Radna church
has preserved its impressive look. The nave is 56 meters long, 20 meters wide
and 21 meters high. The towers, that were the last to be erected, were
over-heightened in 1911 to reach 67 meters. Above the main altar there is a
fresco featuring the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, painted by the Viennese
artist Ferdinand Schlissel in 1762. In
2013, thanks to EU funding, the Maria Radna monastery was thoroughly refurbished.
The works were completed in the autumn of 2015, having focused mainly on the
monastic compound, according to father Nicolae Laus.

Nicolae Laus: We refurbished the main façade and
the towers, the inside of the church remained untouched. We only changed the
electrical system inside the church but the focal point of the restoration
works was the monastery, which was in a derelict state. We had all the three
adjacent parts of the monastery restored. One part of the monastery was turned
into a museum, another part is used as a conference hall because this project
intended to attract tourists from the west of the country. At around 50 meters
away from the monastery we set up a tourist information centre for those who
come and visit the Maria Radna monastery, a former Franciscan place of
worship.

The Franciscan monks lived there until 2003
when, due to the lack of members in the Franciscan order, they left the Maria
Radna monastery in Lipova, which was entrusted to the Timisoara Bishopric.