Church of the Cândea Knyazes in Sântămăria-Orlea

The church stands on a small plateau at the edge of Sântămăria-Orlea, the seat of the commune of the same name, south of Hațeg on the right bank of the Râul Mare, close to the Kendeffy manor. The village is recorded in 1331 as "villa Sancte Marie". Originally Catholic, the church now belongs to the Reformed (Calvinist) community. Built of rubble stone with dressed-stone corners, the church has a flat-ceilinged rectangular nave with a Romanesque portal on the south side, a rectangular sanctuary with a cross-rib vault and a square five-storey tower on the west front, with a carved Romanesque portal at ground level. The sanctuary and the round multifoil window place it among the monuments derived from the early Gothic style spread by the Cistercian order, and a date of around 1280 matches the written sources. The gallery at the west end of the nave was added after 1447. In the fifteenth century the village passed to the Cândea family of Râu de Mori. Inside, fragments of the painted decoration can be seen; they were uncovered from under the plaster in 1869 by the restorer Ferenc Storno. The paintings belong to several phases: the most important, on the east part of the nave, is dated by a Latin inscription to 1311 and is regarded as the oldest surviving painted ensemble in Romania; the late Byzantine-style sanctuary decoration predates a Latin graffito of 1484 and is attributed to the Cândea period. Painting fragments are also visible on the exterior. The church is a Category A historic monument, LMI code HD-II-m-A-03445, and is in use as a Reformed church.