Church of Saint Michael the Archangel in Gurasada

The Church of Saint Michael the Archangel stands at the edge of Gurasada, the seat of Gurasada commune in the Mureș valley, in western Hunedoara County. The village is recorded in 1292 as "terra Zad" and is the birthplace of the historian Silviu Dragomir. The church has been on the list of historic monuments for more than a century. Archaeological research in 1977 and 1984 proposed at least four building phases: a quatrefoil core, elongated east to west, with semicircular side apses and a central tower, dated by the archaeologists to the tenth to eleventh centuries; a rectangular narthex and a prothesis added around 1300; the division of the narthex with vaults on piers in the fourteenth century; and in 1765 a massive bell tower with an open gallery and a slender spire. Its chronology and founders are debated: some scholars attribute the church to the noble Illyei family, others to local knyazes. The LMI dates the monument to the thirteenth century, with later additions. The building's shape is unique in the Hunedoara area. The interior was painted in 1765, as recorded in the inscription on the west wall of the nave: the narthex is the work of the painter Ioan of Deva and the nave was painted by Nicolae of Pitești, a collaboration linking Transylvanian and Wallachian painting traditions. The entrance is through a low room added to the north side in 1820. The church is a Category A historic monument, LMI code HD-II-m-A-03323, and is an active Orthodox church.