A tordai reformátusok templomai a 17. században: Egyházfalva és Ótorda
Calvinist Churches of Turda from the 17th Century: Bisericani and Turda Veche

Summary/Abstract: The Calvinist (reformed) church of Turda Veche (part of today’s Turda) was built at the end of the 14th century for the monks of the Augustinian order, who left the town because of the Protestant reform after 1553. On the southern side of the abandoned church was built a Renaissance castle with two corner/towers on the southern side (1677–1678) and a gate-tower on the western side (1616), the northern side of the fortification was the church. Today from the castle with a trapezoidal shape remains just the south-western corner-tower and the nearby walls. Th e Calvinist community of Turda (town majority Unitarian at that time) had at the beginning of the 17th century the medieval church of the neighbouring village, Bisericani (donated to the town in the year of 1602) and got many donations and privileges from the Calvinist princes of Transylvania. Around 1635 were important rehabilitation works on the abandoned and ruined Augustinian church financed by prince George Rákóczi the I., no doubt with the purpose to get a Calvinist church in the main square of the town. Newly discovered written sources offers new details about the rehabilitation works, finalized much later than it was believed, just in the second half of the 1660’s. Certain details of these works – by which the ruined choir was detached from the nave by walling, forming the today’s façade – had Gothicizing style. In 1726 the church get a paneled ceiling, from which is preserved just the painted ornament on the top of the walls and an inscription. The old Calvinist church from Bisericani was got by the Paulin order. After the abolition of the order by the reforms of emperor Joseph the II. in the 1780’s, the church was abandoned and bought by the small Lutheran community of the town at the beginning of the 19th century. In the year of 1986 the medieval building was demolished by the authorities.

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