The first fortification in Cluj-Mănăştur (60, Mănăştur Street),
consisting of ground palisade and defense ditch, dates from the 10th
century. In the 11th century a Benedictine convent was to be found
here, that was destroyed by the Tatar invasion in 1241.
The current church building belonged to the Abbacy of Monasterium
Beatae Mariae Virginis of Clus-Monostra. Patron is the Assumption of
the Virgin Mary; the building kept important documents in time.
In 1437, the Convention of Cluj-Mănăştur sealed understandings
between the gentry and the peasants uprising in Bobâlna. Anthony
the Great, the peasants’ rebel chieftain, was executed here.
The church was partially destroyed by a hit (in the 16th century),
then, by the Tatar invasion in the middle of the 17th century. Only in
the 19th century, the church’s nave, the arches and choir walls
were rebuilt by Roman Catholics.
In the communist period, the church was given to the Romanian Orthodox
religion, and during 1991 - 1994 was used jointly by the Romanian
Orthodox Church and by the Roman Catholic Church. After 1994, the
building has returned to the Catholics and entered a broader process
of restoration.
The Roman Catholic Church "St. Apostles Peter and Paul"
The Neo-Gothic church located at the eastern end of the Boulevard
December 21, 1989 was built on the site of the parish church of the
old village of St. Peter. Although it appears that the current
building no longer preserves the architectural elements of the old
church, its patron saint suggests that the first edifice of worship in
the village had already worked before the great Tartar invasion
between 1241-1242. The first document certifying the existence of the
church in the village of St. Peter dates from the second half of the
fourteenth century. During the time of Reformation, in the last years
of the seventh decade of the sixteenth century, the church was taken
over by the Unitarian denomination serving the needs of this community
until 1716. In the latter year, the edifice of worship - with the
parish church of St. Michael – re-enters in the possession of
Roman Catholic denomination. In 1725 the church was donated to the
Minorite Order, its members settled in the re-founded convent in the
south of the place of worship // halidom. Subsequently, in the late
1770, after the construction of the Minorite church on the current
Heroes Boulevard and the adjacent convent, the order moves to the
centre of the city and its old buildings in the village of Saint Peter
are turned into nursing home and hospital. The church, dedicated now
to the patron saint of the poor, St. Elizabeth, will be used as a
chapel of these new social work institutions. Due to some structural
problems, the old church was demolished. In the period 1844-1846 the
present church was built according to the projects of the most
important representative of romantic architecture in Transylvania, the
Cluj architect Anton Kagerbauer. Around this time, the one-floor
building in neo-Gothic style of the asylum was built in the south of
the church. The edifice of worship is a church-room of neo-Gothic
architecture. The church is flanked by buttresses and is provided with
a polygonal closing choir with a vela type ribbed vaults imitating
network vaulting. The main architectural motif of the façade is
the high tower built in front of the nave. The neo-gothic furniture is
preserved inside the church, its most important parts being the pulpit
and the main altar.
The latter comes from a workshop in Munich and is decorated with the
painting of St. Elizabeth and the statues of the two main disciples.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the choir was decorated
with wall paintings made by the Cluj artist János Stein and in
1926 the nave was also decorated with decorative paintings. The high
relief placed on the facade of asylum renders the most famous scene
from the life of St. Elizabeth, that it distributes food to the needy.
St. Peter's church assembly includes two public Baroque monuments,
relocated to the west and east of the building, on the occasion of
systematization of the city: the old Baroque gate of the parish church
of St. Michael and the Column of St. Mary's the Protector. The Baroque
gate of the church of St. Michael was placed in this location in 1899.
It was built between 1743 and 1747 by the parish priest János
Bíró to commemorate the great plague of previous years.
The central part of the gate is enhanced by the presence of the statue
of the city's patron saint, St. Michael, situated above a niche
harbouring the statue of St. Rosalia, and two statues of saints
protectors of the silent partner - St. John the Baptist and John the
Evangelist.
On the sides, there are placed the statues of the most important
antipestilant saints - St. Francis Xaverius and St. Sebastian on the
left, St. Rochus and St. John of Nepomuk on the right. Gate sculptures
come from one of the most important Baroque sculpture workshops in
Transylvania, that of Johann Nachtigall. Behind the church choir rises
another votive monument of Cluj Baroque, Column of Mary the Immaculate
(St. Mary the Protector), moved here in 1959 in front of Holy Trinity
Roman Catholic Church.
Since 1901 the church of St. Peter works as a parish church serving
the spiritual needs of the Catholic community in the area.
The "Bob" Church, with the patron "Ascension of the Lord" is the
first Greek-Catholic church built in Cluj and the oldest Romanian
church in the city.
The name comes from the bishop Ioan Bob, a Romanian noble, becoming
Greek Catholic bishop of Blaj, at the expense of which the place of
worship was built during 1801-1803 after the plans of the architect
Joseph Leder.
The church was built in Baroque style, with a similar structure
(excepting the tower) to that of the Orthodox Church on the Hill.
The wedding of Veronica Micle, a close friend of the national poet
Mihai Eminescu, with Stefan Micle, future chancellor of the University
of Iasi, took place in this church.
The Calvin Church with Rooster (84, Motilor Street) was built
according to the plans of the architect Kos Károly from
Timisoara (1883-1977), in Secession style during 1913-1914. The
Southern tower of the church is showing a rooster - a symbol of the
light that ensures against the devil. According to legend, the devil
operates until the first song of rooster. The church, built in the way
of Romanic churches, is decorated with the motifs of the Hungarian
ethnographic area - Calata Valley - with ornament vault boxes painted
with drawings by professor Sandor Muhits.
Called the Church with two towers (41, December 21st 1918 Boulevard),
is one of the emblematic buildings of the city. The church was built
in the 19th century in neoclassical style, according to the plans of
the architect Georg Winkler, inspired by the great church of Debrecen.
The construction lasted for several decades because of lack of funds.
After the death of Georg Winkler, Anton Kagerbauer was responsible for
completing the work, and he changed the front and the towers.
The Roman Catholic Church "St. Trinity ". The Church - considered the
first religious edifice of the Baroque period in Transylvania - was
built for the needs of the Jesuit Order, one of the main promoters of
the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation. The members of the Society of
Jesus come to Cluj in 1579, at the invitation of the Prince of
Transylvania, Stephen Báthory (1571-1586). The main objective
of the Jesuits was organizing Catholic secondary education and, in the
future, academic education in the Principality. After their several
expulsions legislated by the Protestants in the country, the Jesuits
were allowed to settle in the village of Cluj-Mănăştur in the
second decade of the seventeenth century,. Their return to the city
was possible only after the integration of Transylvania into the
Habsburg Empire. In 1693, they became the owners of the former
Dominican Monastery in the Old Fortress of the city. Simultaneously
with its use, the Jesuits began the construction of a new centre of
the order after having bought some plots of land in "the Interior"
Turda street (University Street), Here, between 1718 and 1724, they
built a new church, according to the projects one of the most famous
active artists in the Jesuit environment in Central Europe, the
architect and painter Christoph Tausch (1673-1731). He was the author
of the plans of several architectural ensembles and some illusionistic
mural paintings, such as those in Trenčín (Slovakia) and
Wrocław (Poland). In the following decades, several buildings for
educational activities were built around the church by the Society of
Jesus (the College Convictus nobilium, St. Joseph's Seminary). Thus,
before the church, a small baroque square was built. Its centre was
dominated by St Mary the Protector's Column (against plague). In 1773,
the Jesuit Order was abolished by a papal Bull. Three years later, the
ensemble of buildings came into the possession of the Piarist Order, a
religious foundation whose main concern was educational activity. The
planimetry of the denomination edifice complies with the well-known
spatial organization of Jesuit churches, characterized by high nave
covered with cylindrical vaults with penetrations and flanked by three
chapels located perpendicularly to the central area. An oratorio was
arranged over the lateral chapels, which opens through arcades to the
main nave. Another characteristic of Jesuit churches in the region is
the two towers of the main façade. A special aesthetic value
gives the portal crowned by a pediment decorated with the
façade with the Trinity relief.
In the two niches of the façade there are the Baroque statues
of the most important saints of the Jesuit Order: St. Ignatius of
Loyola, the founder of the Society, and St. Francis Xaverius, one of
the leading members of Catholic missionary work.
Inside the church, one can admire one of the most valuable sets of
Baroque furniture in Transylvania. Made between 1730 and 1740, this
furniture is decorated by means of intarsia technique. The monumental
building of the main altar, also designed by Ch. Tausch, dominates the
church choir. Under the painting representing the Holy Trinity,
there’s the healing icon in Cluj, the most important
miracle-working icon of Transylvanian Catholic environment in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The origin of this painting goes
to the Romanian church in the village of Nicula (Cluj County), where
an icon painted by Luca din Iclod [Luke of Iclod] wept in 1694. It
became the property of the Jesuits with the support of Count Sigismund
Kornis. Due to them, the most important manifestation of the cult of
the Virgin Mary in Transylvania was born around this icon.
The pulpit of the church is one of the most beautiful in
Transylvania. Its cup is decorated with statues of the evangelists,
the top with the relief of Crucifixion, and the cross is surrounded by
the representations of the most important Jesuit saints. On both sides
of the triumphal arch, there are two altars decorated with specific
rococo motifs erected in 1770s, after the church was taken over by the
Piarists. The right one is dedicated to St. John of Nepomuk while the
other one to the founder of the Piarist order, St John of Calasanz. In
front of the latter, one can see two students wearing clothes specific
to some active foundations particular to Cluj educational institutions
of the epoch.
Țoca, Mircea, Clujul baroc, Cluj-Napoca, 1983.
Nicolae Sabău [1], Metamorfoze ale barocului transilvan, vol I,
Sculptura, Cluj-Napoca, 2002.
Nicolae Sabău [2], Metamorfoze ale barocului transilvan, vol II.
Pictura, Cluj Napoca 2005, 509 p.
Veress Ferenc, A kolozsvári jezsuita templom
építése, în: A magyar jezsuiták
küldetése a kezdetektől napjainkig, Szerk.
Szilágyi Csaba, Piliscsaba, 2006.
Links:
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[1] http://www.librariaeminescu.ro/autor/25840/Nicolae-Sabau
[2] http://www.librariaeminescu.ro/autor/25840/Nicolae-Sabau
