Fortified Churches
TârnavaA Gothic hall church with polygonal choir and a 3/6 apse was built in the 14th century. Around 1500, the choir and the hall were covered with a ribbed groin vault with penetrations. In the choir, the laterally chamfered ribs form a lozenge network. The ribs were later removed in the nave. The choir and the hall are supported by stepped buttresses. The chancel arches and the windows are ogival and the portals display Gothic profiling. The west gallery is ribbed-vaulted on the ground floor.
Mihai Feisan +40/764/473.616
Fortified Churches
TârnavaA Gothic hall church with polygonal choir and a 3/6 apse was built in the 14th century. Around 1500, the choir and the hall were covered with a ribbed groin vault with penetrations. In the choir, the laterally chamfered ribs form a lozenge network. The ribs were later removed in the nave. The choir and the hall are supported by stepped buttresses. The chancel arches and the windows are ogival and the portals display Gothic profiling. The west gallery is ribbed-vaulted on the ground floor.
Mihai Feisan +40/764/473.616
The goblet-shaped baptismal font dates from the Gothic period.
The work dates from the transitional period from Gothic to Renaissance around 1520. On a base with Renaissance profiling rises the triangular ground plan of the house, which in the upper part has ogee arch, finials and tracery.
Samuel Mätz built a slider chest organ for the church, which was rebuilt in 1912. It has a pneumatic cone chest with 13 registers.
The altar that stands in the church today is the work of the carpenter master Friedrich Hermann from 1871. It has neo-Gothic features.
There are three old bells in the tower. The big and small bells are from the 15th century. The large one bears the inscription "Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar". The small bell bears the inscription "O rex glorie veni nobis cum pace. Leonardus". The middle bell has the inscription "With God's help Anton Inten cast me in Sibiu A.D. 1642. Quaerite primum regnum Dei et iustitiam eius et haec omnia adicientur vobis".
At a distance of 10 m northwest of the church stands the bell tower. In old drawings and photographs it appears with a battlement, loopholes and a pyramid roof. The roof truss and battlements were removed in 1897, the bell tower was raised by one floor and given a diamond roof. The lower floors have 1-meter-high embrasures that open outward into narrow slots.
The fortified church was surrounded by a swamp called "Kirchenporl", which existed until the 19th century. Parts of the ring wall are preserved in the south of the church. In the south of the complex, a three-storey fortified tower has also been preserved. Its ground plan has the shape of an irregular hexagon. The individual floors are equipped with embrasures, the upper floor with a ring of embrasures. At the beginning of the 20th century, large parts of the fortified church were demolished in order to build the parish hall from the demolition material.
| 1300-1400 | Construction of a Gothic hall church with a polygonal chancel. |
|---|---|
| 1331 | First documented mention of the place. In a tithe register of the Alba Iulia chapter, parish priest Emerich of Târnava is named as the tithe collector. |
| 1424 | The king donates Târnava to the city of Sibiu. |
| 1500 | The church got its present form around this time. |
| 1611 | The fortified church is completely plundered by Prince Gabriel Báthori. |
| 1659 | Achatius Barcsai is in the village with Turkish troops. |
| 1718 | The magistrate of Sibiu decides that in the future the inhabitants of Târnava shall be considered as Medias chair people. |
| 1719 | In the village, 260 people die from the plague. |
| 1877 | During a flood, masses of earth are deposited around the church. Today the church is about 2 m buried. |
| 1897 | The roof truss and battlements are removed, the bell tower is raised by one storey and given a diamond-shaped roof. |
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