Saint Paraskeva Wooden Church, Botiza

The wooden church dedicated to Saint Paraskeva (Cuvioasa Paraschiva) stands in the village of Botiza, the seat of Botiza commune in Maramureș County. It is an old Greek Catholic place of worship and should not be confused with Botiza Monastery. According to the Romanian Wikipedia article, the church was built in 1699 in Vișeu de Jos, commissioned by the nobleman Ștefan Pop, and brought to Botiza in 1899. Here it replaced the village's old wooden church, which was demolished and donated as building material for the denominational school in Hoteni. When that school was demolished in 1997, its beams were studied, and preliminary tree-ring dating placed the old Botiza church in the last decade of the 16th century. After the move in 1899, the church was renovated and painted by Dionisie Iuga and his daughter Aurelia, painters from Nicula. The nave and narthex have a rectangular plan, the sanctuary is polygonal, and on the west side there is an open porch, wider than usual. The roof has two tiers, with the lower eaves running all the way round, and the bell tower, with an open gallery and a tall spire, rises above the narthex. The entrance door frame carries the decoration of Maramureș gates, and a carved twisted rope runs around the church. The 1899 painting consists mostly of floral motifs; the painting of the iconostasis is older. On the back of the entrance door there is a painting of Death with a scythe, with moralising inscriptions. The church is a class A historic monument, LMI code MM-II-m-A-04528. The List of Historic Monuments dates it to 1796, which differs from the year 1699 given by the encyclopedia article.