Metoc Monastery (Mănăstirea Metoc) is a Romanian Orthodox monastery in Galați dedicated to the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel. Founded at the beginning of the 19th century as a dependency of Neamț Monastery, it takes its familiar name from this original status as a metochion.
Șișman had purchased the site in 1798 and stipulated that services in the new monastery should be celebrated in both Romanian and Greek. The monastery developed as a metochion of Neamț Monastery, but its early decades were turbulent: Russian troops occupied its monastic cells in 1810, and the church was burned and looted during the upheavals of 1821. Repairs followed during the 1820s, with a larger restoration carried out in 1858.
The monastery also played a part in the beginnings of public education in Galați. From 1832, the city’s first public school operated in its buildings before later moving to purpose-built premises nearby, eventually developing into today’s Secondary School No. 24.
The church has a cruciform plan divided into pronaos, nave and sanctuary, with an enclosed porch projecting from the north side beneath a tall tower. Inside, the carved wooden iconostasis is gilded, while several older icons dating from the second half of the 18th century are preserved. The monastery ceased functioning as a monastic community during the 20th century and served for a period as a parish church, before monastic life returned and it was re-established as an independent monastery in 1994.
