Brădeni Fortified Church

Documented for the first time in 1448, the Gothic hall church was erected without a tower. During the fortification works in 1500, a mighty defence tower was built above the chancel and a second one on the western side. The chancel was encased with a 2 m thick wall, which separated it from the nave. The access from the nave went through a portal secured with portcullis. The church was surrounded by a wall protected by a gate tower, but only fragments are still preserved. The gate tower was later converted into a dwelling for the castle guardian.
In the 19th century he western tower of the church was replaced by a polygonal annex for the organ loft. On the eastern wall one can admire a rare example of pulpit altar, masterpiece built in 1770 by Johann Folbarth, sculptor and painter from Sighişoara. In the walled-up chancel, the Gothic vaults, the tabernacle, the sacristy portal and frescoes fragments are still preserved.

The three-aisles hall church originates from the 15th century, when the aisles of the former Romanesque basilica were heightened. The chancel and the nave were vaulted, and the walls of the side naves were replaced with octagonal pillars. A tower was built for the first time on the western side of the church and together with the nave and the chancel it was strengthened by adding defence levels between 1504 and 1507. From the fortification measures of the 15th and 16 century, the outer ring walls and three defensive towers have been preserved. The inner wall was demolished in the 19th century, but its path it is easy to track on the exposed foundations. On the north side a storage building equipped with loopholes survived the centuries. The church boasts several treasures in its interior: the neoclassical organ altar from 1821, a Gothic tabernacle, the pulpit and wooden galleries built in 1760.

The completion of the first hall church in Daia occurred in 1447 according to its mentioning on the keystone in the chancel. The church had no tower at the time, which was only added in the western part during the fortification works in the beginning of the 16th century. Later it was dismantled until it reached the height of the nave. In the same fortification phase, a defense level was built above the chancel and the church was surrounded by a ring wall, strengthened by two fortified buildings. The western one is nowadays a ruin, but the eastern one still preserves a good image of the typical storage construction equipped with defensive systems.
In the 19th Century the defensive systems of the ensemble were dismantled step by step, but outside the fortification an impressive freestanding neo-classical campanile, considered to be one of the highest in the country was built between 1829 and 1834. The hall of the church was covered with a flat ceiling in 1884, but the chancel still preserves its late Gothic ripped vault. After the ensemble was closed for regular church service, only the galleries and the pews remained inside.