Romanians have a long tradition for monastic life. Some of the most beautiful Romanian monasteries were built in the fifteen century, by one of the most revered Romanian kings, Stephan the Great of Moldavia. He was a man of profound faith and as a general rule, built a church or a monastery after every major war campaign against the Turks. Romanian kings supported monasteries not only in Romania but also at Mount Athos, in Greece. The monastic life declined after the middle of the nineteen century, when a number of Romanian leaders, educated in the West, attempted to "modernize" the country. Many were closed and the monks or nuns were forced to leave. Some of them desperately tried to continue their life in humble jobs, sometimes around existing Orthodox churches. This process was intensified with the advent of the Communist regime after 1945. Many monks, among them Roman Braga, who is now the starets of a Romanian monastery in Michigan, were thrown in prison. After the fall of Communism, monastic life started to thrive again. Old monasteries are reopened and new ones are started all over the country at an amazing rate. Dracula or Vlad the Impaler was the son of Vlad Dracul (1436-1442; 1443-1447) and grandson of Mircea the Old (1386-1418). Vlad Dracul was dubbed a knight of the Dragon Order by the Hungarian king. All the members of the order had a dragon on their coat of arms, and that is what brought him the nickname of Dracul (the Devil). Vlad the Impaler used to sign himself Draculea or Draculya - the Devil's son -, a name which was distorted into Dracula. Dracula's renown reached the West through the Saxons from the Transylvanian towns of Brasov (Kronstadt) and Sibiu (Hermannstadt), who often gave shelter to those who claimed the Wallachian throne. In order to escape the peril of losing his throne, Vlad would punish the Saxons. Sibiu and the neighbouring area were pillaged and burnt down by Vlad, and many Saxons were impaled. The same happened to the Saxon merchants who came on business to Târgoviste.
In fact, Vlad was called Tepes (the Impaler) only after his death (1476). He ruled in Wallachia between 1456-1462 and in 1476. In 1462, having been defeated by the Turks, Vlad took refuge in Hungary. In 1476, with the help of the Hungarian king Matia Corvin and the Moldavian prince Stephen the Great, Vlad took over the Wallachian throne again for a month. A battle followed, during which Vlad was killed.