St Paraskeva Wooden Church in Desești

The wooden church dedicated to St Paraskeva (Cuvioasa Paraschiva) stands in the village of Desești, Desești commune, in historic Maramureș. The List of Historic Monuments dates it to 1770, the year also recorded by the Greek Catholic vicar Tit Bud; the historian Marius Porumb places it in the middle of the eighteenth century and Alexandru Baboș in 1780. Since the painting and the iconostasis were made in 1780, the church was probably built a few years earlier. The interior painting is well preserved and covers all the walls of the three rooms, an example of eighteenth-century post-Byzantine painting in Maramureș. An inscription in the altar names the painters "Radu Munteanu and Gheorghie" and records that the work was paid for by the village nobles, while an inscription in the narthex bears the year 1780 and Radu Munteanu's signature. The iconostasis, painted on the east wall of the nave and also dated 1780, is unsigned but is attributed on stylistic grounds to Alexandru Ponehalschi. The nave shows scenes from Genesis, miracles, parables and the Passion cycle, with the Virgin Orans surrounded by the Evangelists on the vault. The narthex is taken up almost entirely by the Last Judgement, which runs across all four walls, with Christ the Judge on the east wall. The movable heritage includes fourteen icons on wood, one from the seventeenth century and the others from the eighteenth. The architecture and the painting were restored between 1996 and 1998. The church was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in December 1999 as part of the "Wooden Churches of Maramureș" and is listed as a historic monument under code MM-II-m-A-04566. Formerly Greek Catholic, it has been used by the Orthodox parish of Desești since 1948 and is claimed by the Greek Catholic parish.