Săpânța-Peri Monastery

The monastery was founded in the 1990s and its church, completed in the following decade, was built to continue the Maramureș tradition of tall timber churches with steep shingled roofs and a needle spire, but at a scale the historic examples never attempted: the spire rises around seventy-eight metres, which puts it among the tallest wooden structures in Europe and makes it visible for a long way across the Tisa valley. The construction follows traditional joinery on an oak frame, and the interior is painted in a contemporary Byzantine manner. The dedication refers to the medieval monastery of Peri, which stood across the river in what is now Ukraine and was an important centre of Slavonic learning; this foundation was conceived as its symbolic continuation. It stands a short distance from the Merry Cemetery, so almost everyone visits both.

History

The grandsons of Dragoș of Moldavia endowed the original Peri Monastery in 1391, and its stone church served for more than 300 years as the seat of the Romanian diocese of Maramureș until it was lost in 1783; its ruins lie at Hrushove in Ukraine. The new monastery was founded in 1997 by the parish priest Grigore Lutai to plans by the architect Dorel Cordoș, a community of nuns took it over from 2005, and its church rises to 78 m (Wikipedia, Săpânța-Peri Monastery).

What to look for

• The timber spire - a shingled needle rising around seventy-eight metres.
• Traditional joinery - oak framing built in the Maramureș manner at large scale.
• The painted interior - contemporary Byzantine-style wall painting.
• The valley setting - the church above the Tisa plain near the border.

When to go

April to October for the best light and access; the site is open year-round. It is quieter early in the day, before the Merry Cemetery coaches arrive in the village. Snow on the shingles in winter is striking.

What to expect

Everything here is modern, built in the last thirty years, and visitors expecting a historic wooden church will find a new one; the genuinely old timber churches of Maramureș are elsewhere in the county. The complex is still developing and parts are unfinished. A visit takes half an hour.

Nearby

The Merry Cemetery is in the same village; the Maramureș wooden churches lie south and east.

Key facts