Cloașterf Fortified Church

The fortified church complex stands in the village of Cloașterf, Saschiz commune, in the south-east of Mureș County. The church is a hall church with a polygonal chancel, above which rises a defensive storey with shooting windows and machicolations between the buttresses. It is surrounded by an enclosure wall with a tower at each corner. In the Middle Ages the village belonged to Cârța Abbey. After the old Gothic church was destroyed, the present church and enclosure were built in a single phase between 1521 and 1524 under master builder Ștefan Ungar of Sighișoara; the defensive storey was part of the building from the start. The southern tower of the enclosure was replaced in 1819 by the present bell tower. Inside, the eighteenth-century galleries on three sides have parapets decorated with floral motifs and pictures of fortified churches. The organ above the altar was installed in 1832 on the frame of the old altar of 1716. Behind it survives the inscription with the year 1524, when the works were completed, one of the oldest inscriptions of its kind in Transylvania. The fortified church complex is a historic monument with LMI code MS-II-a-A-15631 (the church, 1521-1524, MS-II-m-A-15631.01, and the fortified enclosure, MS-II-m-A-15631.02). Between 2010 and 2014 the church was restored through an EU-funded project. It belongs to the Evangelical Church of Augsburg Confession in Romania, through the District Consistory of Sighișoara.