The initiative to build a monastic settlement on the outskirts of the village of Putna, on the Almaju Valley, belonged to Mr. Adjutant platoon leader Luca Zăvoianu, son of the village, who donated the necessary land. The foundation stone of the monastery was laid by His Holiness Dr. Laurentiu Streza, the Bishop of Caransebeș, currently the Metropolitan of Transylvania, on August 6, 1996. The monastery also received a donation from Professor Pavel Panduru, the director of the school in Prigor, consisting of 200 square meters of garden. On this land there is a spring to which an annual procession takes place on the "Fountain of Healing" (the first Friday after St. Easter).
In the fall of 1996, the construction of the monastery began and the foundation of a building containing 19 cells, the chapel, the refectory and the kitchen was poured. The works were carried out with the financial and material help of the believers and were coordinated by Mr. Luca Zăvoianu from Putna and the designer Mr. Popovici Ioan, from the region of Almajuli (established in Caransebeș), without any financial claim.
The actual monastic life began in March 1997, when Hieromonk Sava Gana, later named abbot, together with other monks, administered the hermitage. Through their efforts and the contribution of people of good faith, the construction of a summer chapel, a body of cells, a winter chapel and an agro-zootechnical sector was achieved, on a land located near the hermitage. In 1999, the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church elevated the hermitage to the rank of a monastery with the patronage "Transfiguration of the Savior Jesus Christ".
In March 1997, the monastery had 4 residents, and in 1999-2000 their number increased to 12 residents, currently only 4 residents remain. The abbot of the monastery is the proto-Singhelian Andrei Radu.
Sursa: www.episcopiacaransebesului.ro
