Bârsana – Wooden Church, Monastery Museum and Iza Valley

Architectural history

The wooden church “Intrarea Maicii Domnului în Biserică” was built in 1720 as a monastery church and moved to its present location around 1800. It is made of oak beams. Its rectangular floor plan is complemented by a two-storey entrance structure; the recessed five-sided polygonal altar apse and the roof with a double roof overhang are also part of its architectural form. The chronological sequence of construction and relocation is closely connected with the specific forms of this wooden building.

Culture

The Bârsana monastery complex includes a church in the Maramureș style, a summer altar and the Aghiasmatarul. The monastery museum “Muzeul de icoane și carte veche Gavril de Bârsana” preserves religious manuscripts and holy books from the 16th to the 19th century, old icons and an extensive collection of local folk-art objects. Its building extends over three levels: the upper floor is made of wood, and the architectural concept is based on the historical building tradition of Maramureș. Within the monastery complex, sacred architecture, religious tradition and local folk art are thus closely connected.

The “Muzeul Şcolar” house was built in the first half of the 18th century and housed a Greek Catholic denominational school. The traditional Bârsana costume “bărsănesc” is still alive and is worn especially on religious holidays. The house of folk craftsman Toader Bârsan is associated with wood carving, traditional crafts and handicrafts. The monument commemorating the resistance against the Tatar invasion of 1717 is a named historical sight in Bârsana. The school, festive costume, crafts and remembrance of the year 1717 give local history several concrete forms of expression.

Nature

The Iza River, parts of its terraces and the surrounding hills in the Bârsana area are included in the Natura 2000 site “Valea Izei – Dealul Solovan”. The recorded share covers 1,097 ha, or 15% of Bârsana’s administrative area. Within this site, the river course, terraces and hills form a contiguous landscape area.

A lake formed in the Valea Slatinii Valley in 2004 after a landslide blocked the valley. This body of water is one of the more recent landscape changes in the surroundings of Bârsana and adds another concrete form to the natural area shaped by the Iza, terraces and hills.

Routes and dates

The annual patronal feast of Bârsana Monastery takes place on 30 June, the feast of the “Soborul celor 12 Apostoli”, and attracts tens of thousands of worshippers. The Baia Mare–Cavnic–Călinești–Văleni–Bârsana tourist route leads through the Iza Valley to Bârsana Monastery.

Travel options for reaching Bârsana include bus connections between Baia Mare and Borșa via the Iza Valley, as well as travelling by car.

Further destinations in the same overarching context are Recea, Călineşti, Petrova, Suciu de Sus, Poienile Izei, Baia Mare, Băile Borşa and Ocna Sugatag.

For the overarching travel overview: Maramureş.