Wooden Church in Finișel

The wooden Church of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel stands in the village of Finișel, Săvădisla commune, about 16 km south-west of Cluj-Napoca (as the crow flies), next to the village cemetery. It has a tall shingle roof and an open porch. The church was built in 1758, a year written on the back of the iconostasis together with the name of the painter Petru and in an inscription on the south wall of the nave that names the founders (Neacșu Petru, Pleș Floare, Mățui Radu) and the craftsmen Mihail, Popa Găvrilă and Sucală Toader. The present wall painting was made in 1807 by the painters Dimitrie Ispas and Ursu, paid for by the whole village, as the inscription above the nave door records. The shingles were replaced in 1981. The painting survives mainly on the vault and the upper walls of the nave, with the Holy Trinity, the Virgin, scenes of the Passion and prophets, and in the sanctuary apse with holy bishops and the Virgin surrounded by angels. The narthex shows the Parable of the Virgins and the Last Judgement. The church holds 18th-century icons on wood, some by the painter Nistor of Feleac, an icon on glass of the Resurrection dated 1767 and an altar table from 1756. To see the interior, contact the parish. The ensemble of the Church of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel is a category A historic monument, LMI code CJ-II-a-A-07614, with the wooden church (CJ-II-m-A-07614.01) and the wooden bell tower of the 18th-19th centuries (CJ-II-m-A-07614.02). Did you know that Dimitrie Ispas of Gilău, one of the painters of the Finișel church, also painted in 1835 the wooden church from Petrindu, moved in 1965 to the Romulus Vuia Ethnographic Park in Cluj-Napoca? His signature survives there on the royal doors.