Cultural Heritage of a Three Centuries Old Wooden Church

The responsibility, decisiveness and aim of the villagers from Drăghia, Maramureș county, Romania, in preserving their three-century old wooden church is a model worth following by other communities, considering the density of such monuments in this region. The church is the testimony of the values and faith of the community there. Unfortunately, weather and history’s imprint lead to a visible degradation of the place of worship in its structure, architecture and paintings. The community got involved and took steps to obtain funds in order to save the church. Thus, in 2006 the church was restored and saved. However, the interior paintings are in a state of severe degradation, and they also need urgent restoration and conservation. The efforts of this simple community and its fervent struggle to preserve this heritage are astonishing. The fact that they considered the church as the most valuable legacy they can leave their descendants is to be appreciated

The Movable Heritage of Drăghia

The movable heritage of the Drăghia village, Maramureș County, is still around today thanks to a handful of people who diligently tended to the aged objects forsaken long ago. The old wooden church, built in 1706, is today a museum in which some of the age-old ritual objects, as well as other type of objects, are conserved. The decorations of the church, an important aspect over time, include various objects which today can be considered movable heritage. In this regard, the icons or paintings were highlighted by decorating them with decorative towels, woven by the village’s women. Other cloths, rugs and mats were also used for „dressing” the church. We will open the list of movable heritage objects with the key to the church, and tell its over 300-years old story. The icons, religious books, royal doors, banners, thurible, the two choir pews, the church bells, and the priest robes will complete our study. On the other hand, you can find an old shirt, a towel, a bench or some other object kept out of respect for their ancestors in almost every house in the village. The Radu families have impressive collections, having establishes a so-called personal museum

Alteration of the Cultural, Religious and Architectural Heritage from Lăpuș Land, in the Context of Climate Change

The architectural heritage is considered the most important category of cultural heritage; therefore, it requires special attention in the current state of climate change. The heritage presented in this chapter includes a total of 26 wooden churches located in Lăpuș Land, framed by UNESCO to the national heritage A and B category. Built on the present grounds or relocated, these are between 200 and 400 years old. Their degradation/alteration has been imminent over the decades due to aging and the socio-political conditions of the times. Alteration is a common notion in relation to the passage of time. The changes in environmental physical parameters, however, raise issues of sustainability of the buildings due to degradation. This paper wants to bring to the readers’ attention the importance and vulnerability of murals in wooden churches of Lăpuș County, which are an invaluable treasure, in terms of constructions, objects and traditions that require a civic responsibility for future generations in these difficult geopolitical conditions overlapping climate change