The Fortified Church at Biertan
Biertan is the perfect example of Romania’s medieval landscapes. It’s as if time had passed it by: no modern skyscrapers, no shabby soviet apartment blocks, no highways with huge trucks, no fast food. Just a fortified church that has crowned this hill and the village since before the Protestant Reformation.
Daniel (felixromania.com) sketched out some of the interesting history of the church as we walked around the fortified walls that protected the local population in times of attack. The towers were constructed by guilds. Each guild had an obligation to build a tower. The trapezoidal shaped building on the right was the town hall.
Opposite was a rather special house called the “divorce” room. This was a place divised by the city fathers for married couples who wanted a divorce. The couple would be sentenced to living together in this small room with only one set of everything…one bed, one chair, one set of dishes and one knife, one fork, etc. They would live here, sharing and taking turns until they realized that they no longer wanted to be divorced. The record shows that in 400 years only one divorce was ever granted. Rather impressive.
Daniel also told me that it took the city fathers 20 years to decide to become Protestant and this was due to corruption in the Catholic Church. (I had just watched a film about the Borgias, a Spanish family who came into the papacy and I could understand their reasoning.)
The church is larger than it looks here. It’s like a cathedral and was empty when we entered except for one young woman who was sorting something in one of the stalls near the altar. The walls were painted a cream color and hid all of the frescoes from the days when the church had been Roman Catholic, but the unique altar piece, a polyptich, glowed fresh and vibrant.
As we entered cold air rushed from the doorway as if from a crypt. It added to a sense of being transported to the past. The pews were rather higgledy-piggledy as if the congregation had rushed out to make amends for their transgressions after a recent fire and brimstone sermon.
I loved Biertan. I think it was my favorite place in all of Romania. I had a wonderful feeling of awe for all that had happened in this place, as if I were a miniscule part of it all just by being there.
Afterwards, Daniel and I ate lunch in a restaurant in the village. It was here that I ate my first papanash. These are something like doughnuts but with a mild cheese in the center. They were set on a pool of sweet/tart blueberry jam and covered with a sweetish sour cream and powdered sugar. Oh, delight!
Daniel and I ate many papanash during our two weeks, but these remained my favorite because they looked as if someone’s grandmother had made them. None of the others, delicious as they were, could compare.