Story
The story of St. Michael's Church
Its tower, 76 metres high and 80 with the cross, is the tallest in Transylvania, and after the Black Church of Brașov this is the second largest church in the region. The story begins on 19 August 1316, when King Charles Robert of Anjou granted Cluj the right to choose its own parish priest.
The church rose on land that had been a cemetery with a chapel of Saint James, paid for partly by citizens and partly by indulgences; a document of 1349, signed by the archbishop of Avignon and fifteen other bishops, granted indulgences to those who helped light and furnish it. Its oldest part, the altar, was inaugurated in 1390. Over the centuries the church turned Lutheran, then Unitarian from 1566 to 1716, and finally Catholic again.
Princes of Transylvania were elected under its vaults, and on 18 May 1944 Bishop Áron Márton spoke here to strongly condemn the deportation of Jews. The present Gothic Revival tower was built between 1837 and 1862.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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