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Northern Romania is home to the mountainous region of Maramures with its famous wooden churches and unique folk traditions. While the wooden churches are prevalent across Eastern Europe, from Karelia and northern Russia to the Adriatic Sea, in terms of quality and quantity, the best examples exist in Maramures.

Although the region is well known, Maramures remains a bit elusive to casual tourists. Its varied landscape dotted with working villages and farms, beckons the traveler to experience it. Alongside these beautiful churches are well-preserved wooden villages housing welcoming people with rich traditions and colorful dress. For a moment, the traveler will feel as if they have arrived into a living museum!

Maramures wooden churches date from the 16th century. From 1278 onward, Orthodox Romanians were forbidden to build their churches in stone by their Catholic Hungarian lords. Out of necessity, they utilized wood to craft buildings with Gothic influences.

The churches were generally built on the village’s highest ground in order to escape the mud season. Their foundations are of solid wood construction. The walls are constructed with thick, horizontal logs. The churches possess a tall, narrow timber clock tower at the western end of the structure, either single or double roofed, and covered with wood shingles. This imposing tower above the entrance and the massive roof appears to dwarf the church’s main body. Often, the four-corner pinnacles of the tower resemble the masonry architecture of the Transylvanian cities. The exterior craftsmanship and impressive design is a veritable form of art. On the other hand, the interiors are quite small and dark and painted with “naïve” Biblical scenes.

Since 1989, there has been a renaissance of the Greco-Catholic (Uniate) faith, which was repressed under Communism and forcibly merged with the Romanian Orthodox Church. Several parishes have reverted to Greco-Catholicism and reclaimed their churches. Other villages have separate churches: Orthodox and Uniate. Numerous villages have begun to build new, larger structures to accommodate all of their parishioners.

In 1999, eight of Maramures’s wooden churches were added to the UNESCO World Heritage Site. These churches can be found in Barsana, Budesti, Desesti, Ieud, Sisesti, Poienile Izei, and Targu-Lapus. MotoRomania recommends visits to the following wooden churches: Giulesti, Sat-Sugatag, Budesti, Barsana, and Sapanta.

Built in 1633, Giulesti is about two kilometers off E81 down a rough gravel road. The church has no signage and is obscured by a house on the hillside. Its most unique feature are the fresco remnants on the outside wall, similar to those seen on the Bucovina monasteries.

The church in Sat-Sugatag was built in oak in 1642, on the site of an earlier building. Surrounded by a charming, serene village, the compact church has an ornate gate, beautiful wooden cross graveyard, and spacious yard making it a special destination. It is rectangular in plan, with a protruding polygonal sanctuary apse, and is one of the most representative monuments of religious architecture in Maramures. The naos is covered by a high semi-cylindrical vault supported on a system of consoles. The pronaos has a flat ceiling, above which rises the bell tower with its gallery and slender spire. The shingle roof has eaves at two levels. The entrance at the west end is richly decorated with the twisted rope motif and geometrical elements. Only fragments of the wall paintings survive. A number of icons on glass and wood are preserved inside the church, including two, of very fine quality, painted in 1785 by Gheorghe Visovan.

Built in 1643, the lower church of Budesti was built in oak in 1643, and is notable for its large dimensions: 18 m long by 8 m wide. It consists of a polygonal sanctuary apse, a naos with a high semi-cylindrical vault, and a pronaos with a flat ceiling. The roof has eaves at two levels. Above the pronaos rises a bell tower with four turrets at the base of the spire, an unusual feature in the Maramures wooden architecture. The interior wall paintings and some of the icons date to around 1762, when the painter Alexandru Ponehalski from Berbesti worked here.

Objects preserved inside the church include 16th century glass and wood icons, a 1684 manuscript along with a number of liturgical books, and the chain mail shirt worn by the legendary outlaw Pintea the Brave. The church is designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The contrast of the new, striking Barsana church built in 2003 looms on the hillside near the center of the village. It is a Roman Catholic Church. At the bottom of the hill is a small museum featuring the art of a local sculptor featured in the 1990s at the Smithsonian Folk Festival. However, the popular Orthodox pilgrimage destination is the Barsana Monastery. Its wooden buildings were primarily constructed in 1993. The church stands majestically with its 56-meter steeple. Its landscape and grounds are immaculate.

In addition to its famous “Merry Cemetery,” the village of Sapanta boasts the tallest wooden church in Europe, which is still under construction. Its 75-meter spire, magnificent woodcarvings, and overall impressive structure are a tremendous tribute to those who have a role in its construction.

Serenity and folklore

Barsana

Giulesti

Sat-Sugatag

Budesti

Sapanta

Budesti

Wooden Churches of Maramures

Motorcycle Adventures for the 21st Century