The Black Church (in German Die Schwarze Kirche) is the parish church of the Evangelical Lutheran community of Brasov, located in the centre of Brasov.
Today’s Black Church stands on the site of an earlier 13th-century Romanesque church destroyed in the great Tatar invasion of 1241. The current construction began in 1383, when Brasov was in a period of strong cultural and economic development, being the most important commercial and industrial city on the Transylvanian border with Wallachia. The Turkish invasion of 1421 interrupted the construction of the church and the town had to concentrate on fortifications, but they were later continued according to a much simplified plan.
Thanks to the tradition of the Saxon merchants to donate Turkish carpets from their travels, the collection of 120 carpets from the 17th and 18th century, housed inside, is one of the richest in Europe. The column by the west door still bears the marks of bullets from the 1989 revolution.
Standing 66 metres high, the bell is considered the largest in Europe, weighing 7 tons, it is the heaviest in Romania.
The Black Church is the largest Gothic style edifice of worship in south-eastern Europe, measuring 89 metres long and 38 metres wide. The church holds around 5,000 people. It is a late Gothic hall church with a choir, nave and tower. Of the total length of the building, 31 m are the choir, 42 m the nave and 16 m the base of the tower.
Of the two towers of the original plan, only the southern one was raised to a height of 44 m, and its dome rises to 65 m on the cross arm of the cross. Above the balcony on the south and west sides of the tower are the clock dials in the tower. The main portal of the church is on the south side and is enriched with ornamental carvings.
The outer walls and the tops of the vaults are 21 m high. The roof ridge of the nave is 42 m high and that of the chancel is about 38 m high.
The tower part is 30 m high, and the outside, between the two spiral staircases, measures 31 m.
The total surface area of the church is 2500 m² and the blocks from which the walls are built have a volume of 9000 m³. The roof area of the church measures approximately 4500 m². The Black Church is 589 m above sea level.
black church brasov churches history old town
Last modified: November 15, 2022
