Pages from the history of the Hâncu Monastery library

The Hâncu Monastery dedicated to the St. Paraskeva is considered to be one of the oldest monasteries of Moldova between the Prut and the Dniester. It was founded in 1677 by the Moldavian nobleman Mihalcea Hâncu. The monastery library, until its closure by the Soviet authorities in 1950, contained old charters, manuscripts and books printed in Bucharest, Iaşi, Râmnic, Neamţ Monastery, Sibiu, Braşov, Chişinău, Vienna, and St. Petersburg. The first religious books in the library of the monastery were handwritten, and only at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries there appeared printed books from Buzău, Bucharest, and Iaşi. After the dissolution of the monastery these treasures have disappeared without trace. Only some of the books have been found in libraries of other monasteries or in Chisinau. At present in the library of this monastery there are 75 books published in various Romanian and foreign centers. Most of them were printed in Chişinău and the Neamţ Monastery, and the oldest ones were published in the 18th century in Bucharest, Râmnic, Iaşi and other Romanian centers of printing.