The Bucur Church (Biserica Bucur) is a Romanian Orthodox church located between Radu Vodă Monastery and the Dâmbovița River in the center of Bucharest. The church is dedicated to the saints Cyril of Alexandria and Pope Athanasius I of Alexandria.
There’s a lot of controversy over when the church was actually built. Some people believe that the Bucur Church was built by a shepherd named Bucur who, according to a legend, was the founder of Bucharest. According to some researchers, this claim is historically incorrect as the church was first built in the 17th century and rebuilt in the 18th century. Another suggestion made is that it was built in 1568 by Mircea the Shepherd (Mircea Ciobanu), who is buried in the cemetery of Radu Vodă Monastery, as a chapel for the monastery. In 1938 Grigore Ionescu published a book that takes an entirely different perspective on the case with the suggestion that the church must have been rebuilt in 1869 to look 300 years older.
So many people, so many opinions, but they all agree on one thing: the Bucur Church is a beautiful historic masterpiece. Over time it has been restored and maintained well with plain white walls, an elegant porch with wooden posts, and a mushroom-shaped dome at the rop.
