More Church Business: Going Churching in Brasov

Apparently Romania has many weekends to celebrate the dead, and this weekend (also the first days of March) was one of them. On this day they make cakes for the dead. They're made out of wheat, and the idea is that this completes some circle (circle-of-life-like) with returning the wheat to the earth (where the bodies are). When we visited our last church yesterday I saw the cakes and thought they were for a wedding. We asked if that was the case, but of course they weren't - they were for the dead.

My previous post on religion/buildings made me realize that I've neglected a lot of houses of worship here in Brasov. I've had my eyes set on the synagogue for awhile, but the gate seems to be locked usually, and of course no one I ask seems to know whether I would be able to visit it. But I have clearly been ignoring the plethora of churches in town which I see but don't really notice.

After a weekend's worth of sinful activities (not true - just lots of Romanian wine and beer, which are hardly sinful in a Romanian context), I certainly needed a lot of church. So instead of a Sunday sleep-in I got up for church. However, I have to say that had it not been for my two companions (one a NC/Romania jumatate via Oxford visiting from Bucharest and one a British volunteer from Birmingham via Senegal) I would have opted for the "lie in."

We aimed for the Black Church, literally the biggest target in town. According to a guidebooks, the Lonely Planet perhaps, it is the largest Gothic cathedral between Vienna and Istanbul. Like many Brasovean things inside the walls, The Black Church harks back to Saxon days. But unlike many other things, it remains in (ethnically) German hands. It is a Lutheran church, with its services and signs in German. I wanted to visit over Christmas, but they closed it to tourists for 4 days. They also had a guard at the door to keep out people who might try to sneak in with the regular church-goers.

This Sunday we got there at about 10:02 for the 10 o'clock service. But the padlock was already on the gate. So we moved on.

We went to the main downtown Orthodox Cathedral on Piata Sfatului. It was an awesome experience. As I described before, the service lasts for several hours and people come and go during that time. The old women clearly dominate, but as time passed people kept coming until there was hardly any more standing room. The entire time we were there (about 1.5 hours, I think) there was a choir singing. So basically the service consists of several chants, prayer recitations, and songs. The clergy direct the rituals but there are never any obvious pauses. Transitions just kind of happen.

After leaving the cathedral, we walked down an alley way, which happens to house the Hungarian Catholic Church. We sat for a few minutes of the noon mass, in Hungarian, but then moved on for some lunch.

In the afternoon, we visited several other churches. Too late for services, we simply popped our heads in. The Roman Catholic church, another Orthodox church, and then the beauties - two more Orthodox churches in Scheii that I've visited before. One is St. Nicolas, and the other one is nameless according to me, but has a stunning cemetery packed into the valley.

So, I went churching. It was fun. It's nice to know that in a little town like this (not actually that little), one can find so many church communities and has so many language options - Romanian, Hungarian, German (as this is Transilvania, those three are normal), Latin bien sur, si ook engels avec los americanos.

My camera seems to have gone into hibernation or to heaven. Basically it no longer responds to me (and yes, I changed the batteries). So these photos are from back in the day, the fall. Hopefully Cam will be back soon.