Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit in Ostrov

The Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit stands in the village of Ostrov, Râu de Mori commune, in the south-west of the Hațeg Country, on the line of the old Roman road linking Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa with the point where the Strei leaves the basin. The village is named after its position, surrounded by the Râul Mare and the Apa Borii streams. The church, a former court chapel, has an elongated nave with a timber vault, a semicircular apse and a slender tower on the west side. The church was founded by local knyazes and predates the mid-fourteenth century; of the original building only the south and west walls of the nave survive. In 1360 "Petrus, archidiaconus de Oztro" is mentioned, the first known archpriest of the Hațeg district. The tower was added in the first half of the fifteenth century, and repairs in 1863 replaced the old sanctuary and the north wall. Over time the community went through Calvinist and Greek Catholic periods, and after 1948 it became Orthodox. Fires in 1883 and 1905 damaged the building; further repairs took place in 1971 and 1996-2000. Fragments of the old painted decoration survive, among them the dedication icon of the Virgin Hodegetria on the west front, dated to the early fifteenth century and attributed to the painter Ștefan on the basis of stylistic similarities with the painting at Densuș. The church is surrounded by 208 Roman stones with Latin inscriptions, arranged as a collection in the first half of the sixteenth century; they can be seen in the churchyard. The church ensemble is a Category A historic monument, LMI code HD-II-a-A-03400, with the church itself listed as HD-II-m-A-03400.01. It is an active Orthodox church.