The wooden church "The birth of the Virgin Mary" from Ieud Deal
The wooden church "The birth of the Virgin Mary" from Ieud Deal

The wooden church "The birth of the Virgin Mary" from Ieud Deal

Biserica de lemn Obiective turistice

Ieud, Romania

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The ancient hearth of human habitation, Iza Valley, is home to several villages whose history is lost in the mists of time. The village of Ieud was part of the domain of Bogdan from Cuhea, the legendary Maramureș voivode who, by conquering the lands east of the Carpathians and declaring independence from the Kingdom of Hungary, later became the founding Prince of Moldavia. According to legend, the Church of Ieud Deal, dedicated to the Birth of the Virgin Mary, was erected in the second half of the 14th century, but recent research dates it to the beginning of the 17th century. Built of fir wood, the monument is a testament, centuries later, of the mastery of carpenters in this region.

The layout of the church was adapted to the needs of the Orthodox Christian cult, being composed of three rooms: narthex, nave and altar.

The access inside the place of worship is made from the west, through a portal without decoration, recurrent at the entrance to the nave. Natural light penetrates the monument through small pentagonal windows. With only four pentagonal openings, the narthex is dark. The nave, however, enjoys more sunlight, coming from its twelve windows, six placed on each side: three at the lower level and three at the upper one.

Above the narthex rises the famous Maramureș bell tower. Unique architectural solution for wooden constructions, the steeple supports a turret covered by a square-shaped coif with a square base, which points to the sky, defying the law of gravity, reminiscent of the audacious forms of European Gothic.

The mural painting and the icons dating back to the 18th century give a special value to this monument. The church was painted in 1782 by Alexandru Ponehalschi, one of the most important representatives of the post-Byzantine current in Maramureş at that time. An original element of the Maramureș iconography is represented by the scenes in the nave of this place of worship, which capture the themes of conversion and baptism. It is about the baptism by Deacon Philip of a great Ethiopian ruler and the conversion of the Holy Apostle Paul.

A true temple of the ancestral faith and culture, the church in Ieud preserved among its beams one of the oldest manuscripts in Romanian, also known as the "Codex of Ieud". The manuscript currently enriches the collection of the library of the Romanian Academy with its pages, full of spirituality and history.

*Photo credit: CJCPCT „Liviu Borlan” Maramureș, Rada Pavel

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The wooden church "The entrance of the Virgin Mary into the Church" from Bârsana

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Erected at the beginning of the 18th century, as a place of worship for an important monastic community, the current UNESCO heritage church was the cathedral of Bishop Gavriil of Maramureş. Born in Bârsana, the bishop patronized a monastery school and a book distribution center there. The events that have taken place in the last three hundred years on the Iza Valley have left their mark on the beams of the church in Bârsana, more than on other monuments.  At the end of the 18th century, the imperial court in Transylvania and Maramureş would impropriate the monastic properties and the close down of the monastic communities. This campaign directly affected the monastic community, which was forced to withdraw to Moldova. Left unprotected, the church would be saved by villagers, who dismantled it piece by piece and, around 1800, would rebuilt it on its current site. For a proper reassembly, the beams bear signs that can be admired today. Standing on a pedestal, the beams carved from large oak trunks - from which the walls were built - were joined at the corners in a "swallow's tail" pattern. For two hundred years, the church has been guarding the peace of the people of Maramureş, buried in the cemetery on Jbârului Hill, to the left of the road that starts from Sighetu Marmaţiei, along the Iza River. The layout of the church is rectangular, composed of four rooms: porch, narthex, nave and altar. The apsis of the altar has five sides, being covered with a simple roof. Above the other rooms of the worship place, the roof has two ridges, housing a balcony to the west. The ornaments and the manner in which the western façade is made are identical to those of the porches of traditional houses. The carved wooden decoration uses motifs common in Maramureş, such as the twisted rope or the solar disk. The whole church seems to be surrounded by a twisted girdle, discontinued by a circle-shaped solar motif. After moving to the village, it was painted by Toader Hondor and Ioan Plohod, the iconography of the monument being considered to be the best expression of Baroque and Rococo in folk painting, in this part of the country. The scenes are depicted within stylized medallions binding the entire iconographic ensemble. The impressive wooden church from Bârsana is an example of perfect stylistic unity and an impeccable artistic sense.
Bârsana 437035, Romania