Today I'm going to take you on a tour and show you what the medieval Lutheran church in the heart of the historical city center of Medias, called St. Margaret Church looks like from inside. You may wonder why is this a big deal. It is because it's an old and beautiful church, which has an entry fee around 2euro and after paying (which is not a fortune but I don't agree with by the way, let people visit any church for free as it's God's house), you find out that photographing is forbidden. Bang! This is a big slap on any tourist's face as everyone wants digital memory of the places visited.
Mid May, during the night of the museums, the church was also participating and with this occasion the entry was free. There was no word about allowing people to take photographs, but I was optimistic about getting a free pass this time.
St. Margaret's Church is a Lutheran church, located at 1 Piața Castelului in the historic town center of Mediaș (Mediasch), Sibiu County, in the Transylvania region of Romania.
The present, late Gothic structure was built between 1437 and 1488 by the ethnic German Transylvanian Saxon community at a time when the area belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. Consecrated as a Roman Catholic church, with St Margaret of Antioch as its patron saint, it became Lutheran following the Reformation. source
The complex ensemble of the castle and interior part of the church invite visitors to discover and admire the four altars dating from 1480 to 1522, the magnificent baroque organ dated 1755, the second largest Anatollan (Turkish) carpet collection in Romania, and a small museum of Saxon history and artifacts.
This is what the poster at the entrance says and this is why I wanted to visit as well as take photos. We can remember some details for a limited time, but not forever. Photographs can help in this regard.
The sad truth is, this place needs a lot of money. The entrance to the fortress is in a deplorable state as you can see and this is not even the bigger problem.
A week or two before my visit, there was a huge storm in Transylvania, that caused a lot of damages, among which it took off part of the church roof.
Please note that very stylish wooden door, which must be a reproduction of the old one as it looks too good.
When we entered the church, there was a lady representing the church welcoming us. I had my phone in my hand, holding it high enough to be visible and my first question was: "Am I allowed?" To my joy, the answer was: "Without the flesh, yes". Yayyy!!!! I knew I will need to heavily edit the photos, but was extremely grateful anyway as maybe this was the only occasion visitors were allowed to take photos.
Last year I visited the Lutheran church of Reghin, which is similar to this to some degree.
For me, the beauty of a church is not the altar, but the organ. I know, it's not very nice as the altar should be sacred and I respect that, but the organ for me is a magical musical instrument and will always be drawn to its voice. Obviously going up to the altar was off limits.
Those are the famous rugs the poster talked about. I suppose back in the day were in use but now, due to the age of them, the best place for them is out of the reach of the public.
These churches have gone through a lot over the years, have changed religion and this comes at a price. Most of the times murals have been hidden under a new layer of paint and only discovered later, during restoration works. Sometimes restoring these murals entirely is not possible. That's why you see partials.
Apart from being old, I have no idea what this represent.
Again, an old text carved in stone, with the German text next to it, which also says nothing as i don't speak German, but 1666 means a lot. That happened 356 years ago.
These are the artifacts I wanted to take photos. These two, just like the other one before, were situated so high you could hardly read or see what was on them. The digital era gives me the opportunity to enlarge the image and investigate further.
This frame is absolutely fabulous. I suppose there's some kind of prayer on the paper. Would be nice to have a huge house, with a lot of rooms and set up one with artifacts like these. Obviously it would be replicas as you can't really find originals.
Those wooden boxes were very interesting. Back in those days these were functioning like safes today.
I'm not sure what the church's plan is but in my opinion these artifacts deserve more. A nice museum would be better to display these in a corner, nicely lit.
Apologies for the quality, but I don't know what I could have done without a flash.
This object was used for baptizing and dates back to the 16th century.
One of the pulpits that has stone stairs. I've never participated in a Lutheran service, so I don't know how it is done but would love to participate in one one day.
This is the other beauty of the church, the other organ.
Finally, the altar. I could not get any closer as I don't know if it is appropriate. There was no one going closer to it, so I better stayed away as I don't like to be disrespectful.
This was once the main entrance and you can see it is stylish enough to be the main point, but it is not used anymore. They instead are using the side entrance.
The church is surrounded by a heavy stone wall and this is the entrance to the main tower, which served as a gate as well.
A part of the wall. This is original.
These stairs take you to the historical city center.
And this is a gate that I love so much. Unfortunately there was a poster glued to the gate and the sun was painted, which takes away from its value and I think it's not appropriate at all.
I hope you liked the tour and you're going to visit once you are in the area. This fortress is part of the city's history and a nice tourist attraction point. Taking a walk here is like taking a walk in another century, like a time travel. It is always a pleasure for me. I'm not sure if I would ever be let to take photos again, but at leas I had this chance.