Dumbbells from the middle of the 15th century are the Apafi family. Their estate grows in 1552, when Apafi Gergely buys Bethlen, and on this newly created area begins to build a castle. In the old days, the side of the entrance was protected by a wall with bastions and a ditch with water. The other three sides were surrounded by the lake. After the death of the Apafi family, the castle became royal property, and Maria Theresa gave it to Groth Bethlen Gábor. He sold the estate to Armenian traders.
They renovated the castle and moved here to the town hall, later arranged accommodation, but there was enough room for the army. Later that period was also imprisonment. The city's current leadership wants to capitalize on the huge building. In a few rooms, a museum was set up to show the role of the Armenians in the formation of the city, their community and their lives.
https://www.welcometoromania.eu/

Apafi castle

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Şaroş could probably pride itself during the 14th century with a large community who was able to build such an imposing three-aisles Gothic basilica. Similar to all fortified churches, this one too was subject to a great number of changes over the course of time. Out of spatial and security reasons, the main nave and chancel were fortified, the side aisles were demolished and the bell tower was built on the western side during the 16th century and was also provided with a battlement walk on wooden consoles.
Considering the constructive measures as well as the details, the fortified church shows many similarities to the Evangelic Cathedral in Sibiu. Equally remarkable is the so-called “round bastion”, actually the remains of a Romanesque chapel.
Place and surroundings
In the monograph of the village named Şaroş pe Târnave a legend full of wisdom can be read: by approaching the village, the first place that presents its view to the traveler is the graveyard, a symbol of grief and human transience. And yet, after entering the village as such, the graveyard disappears, being replaced by a new symbol: the fortified church, a bastion of faith. While the image of the graveyard reminds of the awful spirit of death, the sacred church offers hope and faith in eternal life. The imposing building impresses from its very entrance: the pilasters, which withstand the weight of ages with dignity, flank the main portal.
In the middle of the altar, which dates back in 1774, the wood carved sculpture of the crucified Savior dominates. On each of its sides there is a real size statue showing Moses and Aaron. Both these art works and the spiritual values of the village stand as proof of a rich cultural past, which still faces the centuries to the benefit of generations to come.
https://kirchenburgen.org/

Şaroş pe Târnave Fortified Church

The accurate date of construction of this church is not appropriately known, thus it is only said to be done around 1390. The large walls which were built in the 16th century, being 4-5 m high are protecting an old church. The entrance of the fortress church is at its eastern side.
The protecting towers are situated in the middle part of the fortress' walls, and the labyrinth is situated in front of the towers. The walls of the small church are fortified with ten pillars. This church has a beautiful ceiling with some woodcraft.
The altar is simple, above which we can find the organ, unfortunately which is not functioning anymore. At the southern part of the chore there is a date 1507, which signifies the date when it was finished along with the ceiling. In the earthquake of 1916 the church was a little bit destroyed and the ceiling also destroyed and there was constructed a wooden ceiling instead. The big chair is in a good shape just like the paintings on the walls.
https://www.welcometoromania.eu/

Valchid Evangelical fortified church

The small tower-less late Gothic church in Daneş was built in 1506. The tower was much later erected in 1927, as well as its defence levels, probably as a sign of self-assertion towards the 1918 new Romanian state and as a symbol for the 800 years of Saxon history in Transylvania. From the original defence wall only a few remains on the south side and a gate tower with a small watchtower are still preserved. The inner furniture dates back to different time periods: the baptismal font and the pulpit are Baroque, the altar is from 1878 and the organ from 1920. The vault covering the church’s hall was built in 1868.
Place and surroundings
The village of Daneş, located few miles west from Sighişoara was documented for the first time mid-14th Century. The reports from the following years describe many difficulties and misery. Due to the great poverty of the place, between 1503 and 1507 a tax rebate was documented. Around 1507 the village burned down completely. Less than 50 years later, the unfortunate happening occurred again in 1555. At the beginning of the 17th Century the place got broke as result of civil wars and the number of the local farmers fell in just 15 years from 90 to 7. Because of the slow development of the village, tax exemption and other benefits were offered starting with 1656 to any colonist willing to settle here, but the success was only moderate. In 1658 the Ottoman troops attacked and destroyed the village once more. Only from 1665 colonists coming from Sighişoara were able to revive the place. Despite all the problems, the fortified church wrote its own history, as regular worship services are still regularly held today, as it has always been starting with the 16th Century.
https://kirchenburgen.org/

Daneş fortified church

The church on the Big Copsa hill was built in the 16th century, and according to the date on the walls it was finished around 1519. the praying folks started to build here a bigger church but than the Turkish invasion, later the earthquake in 1802 postponed the constructions.
The church bell was cast in 1550. Documents proving the existence of a Gothic basilica with three naves in the early fourteenth century. Believers here have started building a larger church, but Ottoman rule, then the earthquake of 1802 delayed the work.
After the earthquake in the 16th century the constructions went on, and they built a square shaped wall around it, this way protecting the church. Two towers were raised, but merely the one in north-eastern part survived the time. Next to the walls there have been being built certain chambers that were destroyed in the course of time. As the chore part was upper than the rest of the church it had to be fortified. It was lifted upwards as well as it got an additional function, too, it was to protect the building.
https://www.welcometoromania.eu/

Copșa Mare Evangelical fortified church

The Biertan fortified church is a Lutheran fortified church in Biertan (Birthälm), Sibiu County, in the Transylvania region of Romania. It was built by the ethnic German Transylvanian Saxon community at a time when the area belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. Briefly Roman Catholic, it became Lutheran following the Reformation. Together with the surrounding village, the church forms part of the villages with fortified churches in Transylvania UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Description
Background and church
Biertan was founded by Transylvanian Saxons in the medieval Kingdom of Hungary. It was allowed to organize a market, placing it in competition with Mediaș and Moșna; it was also the see of the Saxon Lutheran Church from 1572 to 1867. This accounts for the elaborate church and its defenses.
A hall church with three naves that retains a design close to the original, it was the last such church built in Transylvania, and was constructed between 1486 and 1524 on the site of an earlier Romanesque church. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary and built in Late Gothic style with Renaissance touches, the structure was constrained by the hilly landscape. The choir is 18 m in length, with a rib-vaulted ceiling, while the three naves of equal height also have rib vaulting. A defensive level above the choir has parapets and a battlement. A second, wooden, level was demolished in 1803. The polyptych altarpiece has 28 panels executed between 1482 and 1513 by a painter likely trained at Vienna and Nuremberg. In the center, there is a sculpted group: a crucifix with Jesus Christ hanging, Mary standing and Mary Magdalene embracing the cross. The upper side panels show visions of Ezekiel and Augustus. The stone pulpit, which shows scenes carved in relief, dates to 1523. The richly decorated intarsia door of the sacristy has a complex lock, displayed at the 1889 Paris World's Fair. Its central system blocks the door in thirteen points, ensuring the safety of the valuables kept in the sacristy.
Fortifications and recognition
The King granted the town the right to bear arms when the Ottoman army was frightening the surroundings. The Transylvanian Saxons chose to build instead of fortresses around the towns, to fortify the churches. The church has three rows of exterior fortifications linked by gate towers, nine in total. The first, with four towers, dates to the 14th century; the second was built together with the church, and has a series of reinforcing arches; the third, also with towers, is from the 16th and 17th centuries. The clock tower to the north of the church also serves as a gate within the inner fortifications. Four stories high, it has a wooden battlement and parapets. The clock is above the pyramid-shaped roof. The wooden bell tower is located north of the church, while the mausoleum tower contains the headstones of the priest who built the church as well as the bishops buried at Biertan. The Catholic tower was used by the few Saxons who did not adhere to the Reformation but kept their Roman Catholic faith. Its chapel (ca. 1520–1530) features a rare example of 16th-century Transylvanian mural painting, forming an exception to the austere aesthetic that predominated. The grounds contain a "matrimonial prison" where couples wishing to divorce were confined so they could be sure they wished to end their marriage. The lockup lasted for two weeks, although the pair could leave early if they reconciled. They had to share a single bed, plate and spoon. During the three centuries that bishops resided at Biertan, just one couple ended up divorcing.
The church was occupied and robbed in 1704, during Rákóczi's War of Independence. It suffered damage during the 1977 Vrancea earthquake and subsequently underwent restoration work between 1983 and 1989. Since 1990, Saxons come annually to Biertan to celebrate their heritage. In 1993, Biertan and its fortified church were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site; it was joined by six other places in 1999 to form the villages with fortified churches in Transylvania site. Additionally, the church is listed as a historic monument by Romania's Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs, with each of the three fortifications considered a separate monument. Biertan was the subject of two 2011 postage stamps, a joint issue between Germany and Romania.

Biertan fortified church

10 km from Daneș, in Cris, in the middle of a beautiful dendrologycal park, we can find a castle. The history of the castle is just as boisterous as that of its owners.
Long ago the Bethlen dynasty built a fortification here in German style, which in 1400 during the restoration was redesigned for a castle. The heirs of the Bethlen dynasty, Anikó, Éva, and Ágnes are living in Târgu Mureș.
Countess Anikó, the founder of the Bethlen foundation, revendicated the 1949 nationalized castle. After finally regaining the castle, in September 2004, the cultural minister appealed against the act. The countess hopes that after regaining ownership of the castle.
In November 2007 the Bethlen family heirs founded Pro Castrum Bethlen Union, which deals with restoration of the castle, and the inclusion of the tourist circuit.
https://www.welcometoromania.eu/

Betlen Castle (Criș)

Brătoiu town boasts a church built in the 14th century. It has three ships and a bell tower, flanked by the two side ships. Subsequent changes led to the elevation of the outer wall of the southern ship. The stucco ceiling appeared in 1846. The altar was built in the 16th century. The fortification surrounding the church dates back to approximately the same period as major changes to the church.
The defense wall has an oval shape and adapts to the ground. Unfortunately, the watchway is not retained, just some counterfort that occurs at regular intervals. The wall has holes for holes and ramparts. In the west is a deep trench, the southern and eastern side is defended by a massive square tower, and gateway. The bell tower with wooden parapet houses the bells. From the entire church, only the northern ship remained at its original appearance.
Gothic font was made of limestone in the fifteenth century. The sacristy preserves the epitaph of the priest Johannes Hermanus, who died in 1592.
https://www.welcometoromania.eu/

Brateiu Evangelical fortified church

The church in Curciu has remained almost unchanged since its construction in the beginning of the 14th century. The remarkable value of the three-aisle basilica with polygonal chancel lies in its outstanding stone masonry. In the chancel the well preserved mullioned windows with tracery can be admired as well as the typical Gothic windows in the tower. The sculptures ornamenting the portals, tower, windows, buttresses, as well as the capitals, keystones, sedilia and the door of the sacristy date back to around 1427. At the beginning of the 19th century the side aisles were heightened, thus obtaining a cross section of a hall church. At the same time both the main nave and the side aisles were covered with a flat, stuccoed ceiling. The tower’s defence level was demolished and replaced in 1913 by the present, with zinc sheet covered spire. Today the ring wall with the gate tower initially used as entrance, as well as a Gothic chapel integrated in this wall still stands as part of the fortified ensemble.
Place and surroundings
A special treasure among the Transylvanian villages is Curciu. This romantic place is situated in the wine-growing region northeast of Mediaş, between hills and forests. The place owes its lush green vegetation to the location between the two rivers Târnava Mare and Târnava Mică and has been nicknamed “Mesopotamia”.
The fortified church of Curciu was built on a hill in the centre of the village. The entrance leads through the gate tower. The chapel inside the fortification has an ossuary, a room in which the bones of the deceased were kept in the past.
The church of Curciu contains many typical for the Mediaş region beautiful architectural sculptures from the 15th Century. The richly decorated western façade shows a bird, a mask and a monster with a human head between the paws.
https://kirchenburgen.org/

Curciu fortified church

The fortified church of Malancrav is closely connected to the Hungarian family Apafi, as this family was given the whole village by the king of Hungary.
According to certain hypotheses, the originally large church with three parts within was built by Gregor, in the early 14th century, the son of Nicolaus. From the middle, or main part, there are four arcades which connects it to the side parts. On a stone it is still visible the emblem of the Apafi family and the following lines: Gentile scuttum appae appae (the shield of the Apafi family). In the 17th century below the sacristy was made a place for the sarcophagi of Apafi Mihaly II, and this is the hand-work of Illes Nicolai, being taken to Budapest in 1900, to the National Gallery.
In the church it can still be visible the most well-structured and visible gothic painting from the 14th century and on all of these pictures, all the 53 the New and Old Testament is being painted. The picture of the main altar which includes Saint Mihai angel along with Saint Clara looking upwards on the Virgin and her son, was given as a gift to the church by Clara, the wife of Mihai Apafi. The church was fortified in the 16th century.
https://www.welcometoromania.eu/

Malâncrav Evangelical fortified church

Have you ever seen yourselves in a centuries old mansion with rooms breathing history, old furniture and a fruit orchard?
The Apafi Mansion is one of the remarkable buildings of the Hârtibaci Valley. The history of the mansion from Mălâncrav goes back well over 600 years, to the 15th century when it was built by the Apafi royal Hungarian family.
In time the building has suffered numerous modifications, however they were all written down in documents. This happened because the mansion was the residence of Michael Apafi, lord of Transylvania and then that of his successors and of the Bethlen family of aristocrats.
In 2007, after several years of renovations, the mansion was opened to the public. It was renovated according to an initial blueprint from the 13th century with five bedrooms, one living room and one library with old, priceless books.
If you visit the mansion in summer you will also enjoy the flavour of the fruits from its garden, which was also restored based on models from old cards and drawings.
http://www.sibiu-turism.ro/