Săpânța-Peri Monastery

Săpânța-Peri Monastery stands at the northern edge of the village of Săpânța, on the bank of the Tisa, which forms the border with Ukraine here. The church spire can be seen from about five kilometres away on the Ukrainian bank, in Transcarpathia. The complex is set in an arboretum called "Livada", with 36 tree species and more than 1,000 old trees. The monastery takes its name from the old Monastery of St Michael the Archangel at Peri, which stood on the other bank of the Tisa, in the village then called Peri and now Hrushovo, in Ukraine, where its ruins survive. In 1391 the grandsons of Prince Dragoș gave it lands and goods, and a stone church was built there. For more than three hundred years the monastery was the seat of the Romanian Bishopric of Maramureș; it was destroyed in 1783. The new monastery was founded in 1997 within the lands of Săpânța by the parish priest Grigore Lutai, to designs by the architect Dorel Cordoș. Since 2005 it has housed a community of nuns, who continued the building work. The church, built between 1998 and 2003 in the style of the Maramureș wooden churches, has three levels: a basement of exposed brick, where services are held, and two upper levels of timber. More than 400 cubic metres of oak and fir were used, and the roof is of fir. At 78 m, the church is considered the tallest wooden church in the world, although the record has not been officially certified. The church was originally clad with 8.5 kg of gold, and the 7 m cross on the spire was covered with 4 kg of gold. The complex is not on the List of Historic Monuments.