Nicula Monastery

Nicula Monastery is an important pilgrimage center in the north of Transylvania. It is located in Nicula village, Cluj County, in the vicinity of Gherla.

An unconfirmed tradition holds that the monastery was established in the 14th century. The first documentary mention dates to 1552, when it was an Eastern Orthodox site. A 1659 reference notes that the monastery was vacant. It became Greek-Catholic at the end of the 18th century, just after the creation of that church, and was dedicated to Saint Nicholas. A radical restructuring took place in the same period, as attested by a wooden church from 1695, an iconostasis from 1694 and a bell from 1696.

An old place of Greek-Catholic pilgrimage, the church of the monastery housed over time the famous icon painted in 1681 by the artisan Luca of Iclod. According to a report by Austrian officers, the icon had been shedding tears between February 15 and March 12, 1699. In 1713 Transylvanian Governor Sigismund Kornis took the icon to the noble residence at Kornis Castle in Benediugu Dejului, from where it reached Cluj.