The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (Biserica Adormirea Maicii Domnului) is an Eastern Orthodox church in central Vaslui, also known as Uspenia. The present 19th-century church stands on a much older religious site first documented in 1628 and is entered through a separate stone bell tower dating from 1836.
The earlier church was a wooden building originally dedicated to Saint George and subordinate at one stage to Zograf Monastery on Mount Athos. It later took the dedication of the Assumption and passed through several ecclesiastical and landholding arrangements before a major fire destroyed the wooden church in 1859. Vaslui philanthropist Neculai Hagi Chiriac immediately began replacing it with a stone church, but died during the work. His nephew Dimitrie Castroian continued the project using his uncle’s estate, and the completed church was consecrated in 1864. Hagi Chiriac’s grave and memorial stone are preserved inside.
The church has a long rectangular nave with neoclassical façades and two onion-shaped towers influenced by Russian church architecture. Inside, the nave opens into a broad hall, separated from the altar by a carved linden-wood iconostasis with gilded decoration and icons arranged in several registers. The wall paintings are predominantly neo-Byzantine and include large compositions funded in part by Vaslui figures including actor Constantin Tănase and former mayor Ion Rășcanu.
The 1940 earthquake badly damaged both the church and bell tower. Consolidation and repairs were completed during the Second World War, and the church reopened on its feast day, 15 August 1943. Among the older objects preserved inside is a Gospel printed at Neamț Monastery in 1821, which survived the 1859 fire and was later bound in red velvet and silver.
