Oh no not another mass: Rohia to Maramures

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Wooden Churches, Folk Festival and Mass!

The drive from Rohia to the Maramures was to take us by a number of traditional wooden chruches that are on the UNESCO world heritage list. Our timing at the first church coincided with Sunday morning mass. As we walked up to the wooden church two old ladies, dressed in full traditional costume ushered us in, next thing we knew we were sitting in Greco-Catholic mass, which turned out to be quite a fascinating experience.

In contrast to the system Im used to in Ireland, it was men at the front and women at the back. I got a seat in the front section and Shilpa got a kneeling space at the back. The interior of the church was stunning, very small inside with wooden walls colourfully decorated with paintings of various bible stories.

Mass itself was ´sung´ all the way through by the priest who spent nearly the whole mass in a sperate section of the church with his back to the congeration. His only venture out to the congeration was to place the chalice on heads of everybody in the first two rows and the children. After an hour and a half of mass we took our chance and slipped out the door, before the priest came back to our rows with the chalice.

Running into a Folk Festival
On the drive after mass we took a wrong turn somewhere (easily done as very few signposts) and ended up driving into the middle of a Romanian Folk Festival.

In this village everybody was wearing thier tradional clothes. There was fiddle playing, drums, and bit of singing and lots of dancing. While we were listening to the music a group of teenage girls who were warching us for a while eventualy plucked up the courage and asked us in broken english "where are you from". They would then go away, huddle up in a group and try to string another sentence together in English and then push forward a volunteer to fire the question at us. This went on for about 45 minutes. We admired thier traditional clothes and asked them if they liked them. Their answer was a resounding "No". Its a pity, It seems a lot of the tradation natural for the older men and women may not be around in the next generation.

Wow, what an action packed day. We have seen old wooden churches, traditional folk costumes (not on show for tourists), folk music and experienced Romanian village hospitality.


We later discovered that the festival was for Pentecost Sunday, which is a big religious feast here.

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Photos

Being ushered into mass...
Two old ladies, dressed in full traditional costume ushered us in, next thing we knew we were sitting in Greco-Catholic mass

300 year old Wooden church and bell tower
I think this was then 10th one of these we saw that day.....

Kids running around
A lot the women and some of the men wore traditional clothes, and some of the younger kids wore things like Real Madrid shirts with "Figo" on the back.

Church Interior
Example of one of the colourfully decorated church interiors.

Running into a Folk Festival
On the drive after mass we took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up driving into the middle of a Romanian Folk Festival.

Old Traditions, Modern Communications...
Note the mobile phone!

Bible Stories
Bible Stories painted on the inside of the wooden church walls. These paintings are one of the reasons the churches are on the UNESCO world heritage list.

The group of teenagers
The colour of the stripes and design on the aprons indicated which local village they were from.

Old Mans Bench
so called because this is where the old men sit during mass.....outside where they can have a good old gossip.

UNESCO Wooden church
Mass was so full people had to stand outside.