Transylvania’s major cities are multicultural communities. Cluj-Napoca, the capital city of the Cluj County, makes no exception. Romanians, Germans, Hungarians, Jews found shelter here and shared its eventful life.

Situated in the center of Transylvania, in the area that connects The Apuseni Mountains, the Somesan Plateau and the Plain of Transylvania, crossed by the Little Somes and Nadas rivers, Cluj-Napoca is a city with a history that can be traced long ago, even from Antiquity.

Mentioned by the ancient geographer Ptolemy as Napuca, the settlement became Napoca after the Roman conquest of Dacia and developed an urban civilization like many other communities throughout the Roman Empire. Little is known about Cluj-Napoca during the migrations that brought the ancient world to an end, but, at the beginning of the Middle Ages, it is first mentioned under the name of Castrum Clus (which means “closed fortified space” in Latin). The combination of the two gave the present name of the city. Its importance grew constantly during the medieval period, until Cluj-Napoca became the capital of Transylvania.

If you take the effort of climbing the hill named Feleac, situated in the Southern part of Cluj-Napoca, with a maximum height of approximately 800 m, you will be rewarded with the panoramic sight of the city and you will notice that, higher than most of the other buildings, not far from one another, there are two churches, standing like two pillars of spirituality. These monuments are the Catholic Church Saint Michael and the Orthodox Cathedral. The older of the two sisters is The Catholic Church. With a length of 70 m and a maximum height of 80 m, it is the second largest Gothic building in Romania (the largest is The Black Church from Brasov).

Its construction is related to the beginnings of medieval Cluj-Napoca. In 1316, Carol Robert of Anjou (1308 – 1342), king of Hungary, awarded the title of “city” to the settlement situated here. Its inhabitants wanted everybody to know about their newly gained privileges and decided to build a church worthy of their status. But their ambitions had to wait a little longer that anyone had expected (150 years) until the impressive building was completed. Initially, the Church Saint Michael was designed as a Roman basilica, but successive changes transformed it in a typical Gothic one. The church was first mentioned in a document from the papal office at Avignon, in 1349, which promised the forgiveness of all sins to those who would have donated money for its decoration.

The religious conflicts from the medieval period also affected Transylvania, and the Church Saint Michael was a place of worship for four different religions. In the first two centuries after its construction, its hall listened to Catholic sermons; the Lutherans claimed it (during 1545 – 1558), then the Calvinists (during 1558 – 1566) and, afterwards, for more than 100 years, the Unitarian movement dominated Cluj-Napoca. In 1699, when the Austrian occupied Transylvania, the church returned to the Catholics. In 1744, the fire that destroyed a large part of the city left the church severely damaged.

Inside, the building is richly decorated; the sacristy’s door is considered to be the most beautiful object existing in the church – it is executed directly into stone, in a late Renaissance style and it was ordered by the church’s parish, Johannes Klein, in 1528. As in the famous Western Cathedrals, the stained glasses leave the viewer in awe. The colors filtered the light and used it to create a show that had, as historians point out, not just a religious purpose, but also and educational one (in a period when the greatest part of the population didn’t know how to read and write).

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