The Wooden Church in the village of Urși

The European Commission in autumn announced the winners of the European Heritage Awards also known as Europa Nostra Awards. The project on the restauration of the wooden church in the Ursi village was among the first four recipients of the grand prix and

Christine Leșcu, 16.01.2022, 14:00

The
restauration of this small church in Valcea county, southern Romania, which
started in 2009 and was completed in 2020 thanks to the funds obtained through
donations and the volunteer work of numerous students, architects and
professional painting conservators, has become not only a model to imitate but
also a way to learn how they used to build things at that time. According to
architect Raluca Munteanu, who got involved with the restoration works, the
church, which was dedicated to the Annunciation and the Archangel Michael, was
built between 1757-1784.

Raluca Munteanu: The church we see today isn’t likely to be
the church that was built first, as we ‘ve learnt that it survived a
devastating fire in 1883 and subsequently underwent a series of restauration
works. An 1843 inscription placed at its entrance mentions founder Nicolae
Milcoveanu who did the restauration works and the church’s extremely valuable
wall paintings date back to the same year. Nicolae Milcoveanu wasn’t a boyar, but a
wealthy local who got actively involved in the community life like they used to
back then. He repaired the church and gave it back to the community.

However,
the woodcarvers, those who actually built the church, remained anonymous until
nowadays, though the painters were mentioned, Gheorghe, Nicolaie and Ioan.
Gheorghe was seemingly one of the locals, as architect Raluca Munteanu
believes.

Raluca Munteanu: They could have been locals who got their
inspiration from the monasteries in the area, mainly from the Hurezi monastery,
which served, as one can easily notice, as model for the other churches in the
area. However, documents are pretty scare in the area and it is possible that
the names of the builders had been known to the locals, but as they didn’t have
the routine of documenting events, their names remain unknown to us. A strange
thing though is that we know the names of the painters… In the case of these
village churches, few names of their builders are known. We only know they were
well-trained professionals and went from one place to the other to build
churches in the neighborhood. An expert painter can nowadays identify the way
in which local style was passed down from generation to generation.

The
dimensions of this church are also illustrative for the village community but
also for the wood exploitation capabilities of the region. The small church in
Ursi is almost 8 meters long, 6 meters wide and maybe measures 2 meters and 40
centimeters from the floor up to its ceiling. With its roof, the church’s total
height stands at 4 meters and 50 centimeters, says Raluca Munteanu adding that its
architecture doesn’t belong to any particular style.

Raluca Munteanu: This is a vernacular church built as
pragmatically as they possibly could at that time. It is a simple construction
made with the materials they abundantly had at that time, like wood, for
instance. This type of dovetail joints can be found all over Europe as it was
the easiest and cheapest way to build something. At the same time, wood was
also cheap and easy to come by in these mountainous areas. The church was
functional and adjusted to meet the requirements of the religious services of
the Orthodox Church and it doesn’t have anything special as compared to the
other wooden churches in the region. It complies with the requirements of the
Orthodox religion and the pattern of its buildings, both in terms of interior
compartmentalization and functionality. Like I said its decorations were
influenced by the paintings of the Hurezi monastery and are organized in keeping
with the Orthodox rituals. What is special, not only for this region but for a
larger area is the builders’ decision to adorn the church with wooden frescoes
as these two techniques, the frescoes and the wooden paintings are known to be
incompatible. Painters here employed a technique used at wall-painted
monasteries, also known as fresco painting, which is executed upon freshly laid
lime plaster and is different from secco painting techniques, which are applied
to dried plaster.

The church’s frail mural painting and its
premises have been completely refurbished and given back to the parishioners
concurrently with another concrete church recently built in the village.

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