This monastery has a special history, being founded by the well-known inter-war journalist Pamfil Șeicaru, who fought in the area of Orșova, in the capacity of young sub-lieutenant of the Regiment 17 Infantry in the First World War.
The thing which determined him to build up a monastery is an experience which happened in the years of the war, experience which profoundly marked him. In the fall of the year 1916, right on Dealul Moșului, the journalist was covered with ground, together with his companion-in-arms from the weapons, Petre Găvănescu, of the explosion of a cannot shot at a very small distance from them.
Both of them survived this events, and Șeicaru promised to built up in this place, when they will have the material possibilities, a monastery, as a sign of gratefulness, but also in the memory of all the heroes who fell for a Greater Romania, as he himself wrote in the act of donation of the monastery towards the Metropolitan of Oltenia, document notified at Munich on the date of the 24th of March 1975.
The Saint Anna Monastery was built between the years 1936 and 1939, period in which Șeicaru was the director of the magazine Curentul and depute in the Parliament of Romania. The monastery, which was going to bear the titular saint of Saint Anna, according to the name of the mother of its founder, wasn’t consecrated immediately after the ending of the construction works.
The consecration of the establishment of nuns was delayed later on by the debut of the Second World War and, later on, by the change of the political regime.
The foundation of Pamfil Șeicaru, in the memory of the heroes fallen in the First World War, functioned until the year 1945, when, together with the coming of the communists, was transformed into a restaurant. The sanctums of the nuns were transformed in places of accommodation, and the church functioned, besides the restaurant and a discotheque.
In the year 1990, Saint Anna Monastery was taken over by the lawful owner, also being given the purpose for which it was made. Therefore, only on the date of the 2nd of December 1990, the monastery was consecrated by the bishop Damaschin Severineanul, vicar of the Metropolitan of Oltenia, helped by a synod of local priests.
The building up of the Saint Anna Monastery was preceded, around 1935, by the cutting through the forest of a ballasted access road, with a length of one kilometer and a half, named the Road of the Heroes, which climbed from the old center of Orșova on Dealul Moșului. On its drive, the road was kept watched over by seven trinities and halting place benches sculpted of massive oak tree wood, in which there were dug dedications for each regiment which participated at the battles from Alion, Cerna and Orșova, in the period August – November 1916. The trinities deteriorated throughout the course of time, disappearing around the years 1960.
The initial monastic complex was formed of a wooden church, with elements of traditional Romanian style, and sanctums on both the parts, the ensemble having the shape of the letter U. In the last decade, there was also built the bell towers with a summer altar and a former public alimentation block in which there currently functions the Memorial museum Pamfil Șeicaru, the library, the trapeze and a tailoring workshop.
