People from five different countries took part in an interersting exchange between UNESCO cultural heritage sites from two continents on 7 March 2024. The event was organized to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the inscription of several monuments on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Transylvania’s landscape of fortified churches was […]
Events
40 posts
The smell of mulled wine and pre-Christmas sounds sweetened the frosty temperatures on Saturday, 16 December 2023, when the CEPIT association hosted the fifth edition of the Christmas market in Holzmengen. The Advent event in the fortified church is becoming a tradition and is now setting an example for Christmas […]
“Fortified Churches in Romania – a photo exhibition‟ has its opening on Friday, November 10, 2023, from 16:00 hrs., at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Stockholm headquarters, in the presence of H.E. Mr. Daniel Ioniță, Ambassador of Romania to the Kingdom of Sweden. The event will be attended by Philipp […]
The travelling exhibition The Transylvanian Landscape of Fortified Churches – A European Cultural Heritage of the Fortified Churches Foundation can be seen in the Franconian metropolis of Nuremberg until the end of this month. On 8 September 2023, the vernissage took place in the town hall of Bavaria’s second largest […]
As part of the funding programme for adaptive reuse, the Fortified Churches Foundation was able to carry out longer-planned building work on the fortified church of Movile in June this year. The south tower now has a stage for cultural events. In the community of Movile, where the association Churchfortress […]
From 18 to 20 August 2023, the ninth edition of the Holzstock Festival will take place at the fortified church of Hosman! The event combines entertainment with heritage protection in a unique way and has become a fixed part of the Romanian festival calendar in recent years. This year, the […]
With the fourth edition of HANDS ON CONSERVATION in Apold, the organizers have turned a successful concept into a tradition! Ten participants from Romania and Germany built the second part of a wooden extension within the ring wall of the fortified church. For the duration of two weeks, the fourth […]
During his official visit to Romania, Germany’s Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) also paid a visit to the Evangelical Church A. C. in Romania and the Fortified Churches Foundation, of which he is a patron together with Romania’s President Klaus Johannis. It was the first presidential visit since 2016, when […]
Detailed information and documents for registrations can be found here (Romanian)!
On May 15th, 2023, at 17:00 ath the Cultural History Museum of Åland (Ålands kulturhistoriska museum), HE Maria Ligor, the ambassador of Romania to Finland, and HE Konrad Arz von Straussenburg, the ambassador of Germany, will jointly open the itinerant exhibition “Fortified Churchs – Defense and Protection – An exhibition […]
It is well known that there are often magnificent treasures under the roofs of churches. But in addition to altars, baptismal fonts or wall paintings, Transylvania’s fortified churches often offer ancient and spectacular carpentry works. Experts from home and abroad are now researching these medieval masterpieces. Robin Gullbrandsson, the commissioner […]
At the last meeting of the Superior Consistory of the Evangelic Church A. C. in Romania, among other things, a new member was elected to the board of the Fortified Churches Foundation. In the future, Dr. Konrad Gündisch will be playing a leading role in the management of the monument […]
Pre-Christmas traditions, local and regional handicraft products, Christmas music and a joyful atmosphere have made the Christmas market in Hosman (Târg de Crăciun la Hosman) an unforgettable Advent experience for young and old, even in its fourth edition! How do you manage in just five years to make an event […]
Since July 18, a summer school for professionals and future specialists in the field of monument preservation has been taking place at the Apold fortified church: the Apold Heritage Lab. The participants come from Romania and Germany and are students in the field of architecture and monument preservation. Among the […]
If you ask us what is new about each edition of the HANDS ON CONSERVATION III Summer School, it is first and foremost the team spirit that connects the participants around common interests and passion for the conservation of historic monuments, thus creating a heritage community. The objective of this […]
After two years of restrictions and online schooling, children are going out into nature again and schools together with guides and various associations are organizing thematic excursions of exploration and discovery. On Wednesday, the Sibiu County Tourism Association in partnership with the Fortified Churches Foundation and Sibiu’s 18th Primary School […]
Wir laden Euch herzlich zum diesjährigen Weihnachtsmarkt in Holzmengen ein! Wir erwarten Euch am Samstag, den 18. Dezember von 15 bis 20 Uhr mit einem schönen und vielfältigen Programm, tollen Produkten aus dem Harbachtal und weihnachtlicher Stimmung auf dem Gelände der Kirchenburg!
In Movile and Hosman this August and September, young professionals from different fields restored outbuildings of the fortified churches. The work stays were coordinated through the organization European Heritage Volunteers. Young experts from the fields of architecture, art history, monument preservation, restoration and craftsmanship from all over the world […]
Since a few weeks, the touring exhibition of the Fortified Churches Foundation can also be viewed online. This was made possible by a grant from the Bavarian State Ministry for Family, Labor and Social Affairs. The exhibition was developed about five years ago by the Fortfied Churches Foundation in cooperation […]
A panel discussion on the future prospects of the Transylvanian Saxon fortified churches took place on 11 February at the Romanian Embassy in Berlin. The occasion was the conclusion of a project to examine particularly endangered buildings, which was funded from Germany between 2017 and 2019. Afterwards Ambassador Hurezeanu gave […]
The debate within the framework of the seminar organized by the Fortified Churches Foundation on the topic of “Open Fortified Churches: transparency, innovation and awareness” brought to light a number of perspectives and considerations that we also wanted to examine in the organisation of the AvantGuards workshop. Participants were representatives […]
Eleven participants and two trainers met from 19 to 30 August in the church castle of Pelișor for the summer school HANDS ON CONSERVATION II. The Fortified Churches Foundation together with the association P.A.T.R.U. (Patrimoniu, Arhitectură, Tradiție, Rit și Universalitate) had taken over the organization of this ten-day workshop. Architects, […]
HANDS ON CONSERVATION II is a workshop for traditional carpentry, focussing on introducing and training the participants in traditional crafts techniques and materials, at the fortified church of Pelisor, Sibiu county. The Fortified Churches Foundation started the project HANDS ON CONSERVATION II, with the financial support from the National Architects […]
The announcement of the Fortified Churches Foundation to organise an event from the series KirchenburgenGespräch on Tour (fortified churches panel discussion abroad) for the first time aroused great public interest. On 8 March 2019, the almost 150 visitors experienced an exciting panel discussion entitled “Travel – Save – Restore” in […]
Two new faces will enrich the child and youth work of the Foundation Kirchenburgen from now on. The illustrator Joy Katzmarzik from Mainz designed it on behalf of the foundation. The two figures are intended to help make materials for this area more understandable and appealing and to present the […]
Two eventful and successful workshop weeks ended on Friday – happy participants and trainers, as well as some vivid results and a lot of learned handicraft techniques were the result of the project HANDS ON CONSERVATION. The workshop, consisting of two modules (1st module: carpentry / 2nd module: masonry) was […]
On Sunday, July 8, 2018, the ceremonial opening of the exhibition of photographer Thomas Duffé (Hamburg, Germany) took place in Hamba. The pictures could be admired for the first time in the fortified church with honey-bread, honey-lemonade and salmon slices. Pia Ionescu-Liehn, the former ifa cultural manager of the German […]
The German landscape planner Jonas Arndt, founding member and chairperson of the churchfortress e. V. Friends of Hundertbücheln-Movile association, was a guest on 3 July, presenting the topic “Fortified churches and their open spaces – impulses from landscape architecture and environmental planning”. In a short introductory lecture Jonas Arndt dealt […]
Within the framework of the cooperation between the Patrimonium Saxonicum Foundation and the Fortified Churches Foundation, important protective and preventive measures are carried out at selected fortified churches. This initiative is intended to show that with conscious and planned action, as well as professional technical measures, churches and fortified churches […]
The Fortified Churches Foundation started the project Hands on Conservation, with the financial support from the Administratia Fondului Cultural National. Hands on Conservation is a multidisciplinary workshop, focussing on introducing and training the participants in traditional crafts techniques and materials, in the setting of the fortified church of Daia, Mures […]
On 28 February 2018, eleven students from the 3rd year of the “Coservation and Restoration” course at the University of Architecture and Urbanism Ion Mincu presented their proposals for the use of the Movile, Agârbiciu and Daia fortified churches. Under the direction of Professor Architect Liviu Gligor, the students had […]
From 11th to 13th January the Fortified Church Foundation was represented at the trade fair Monumento in Salzburg/Austria. Its opening marks the beginning of the European Cultural Heritage Year that will provide a large number of projects that deal with the common grounds of European heritage. The Foundation had been […]
Thanks to the support of the US-American Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation the project planning and some repair works to the worth of almost 60.000 US-Dollars will be carried out in three fortified churches, in Daia/Denndorf, Agârbiciu/Arbegen and Movile/Hundertbücheln by the end of 2018 (see also news from 5 May […]
U.S. Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation 2016/2017: “Safeguarding three Transylvanian-Saxon fortified churches: best practice for traditional crafts and community building” The U.S. Embassy is pleased to announce that Ambassador Hans Klemm is donating $59,300 to the Superior Consistory of the Evangelic Church Sibiu under the auspices of the special U.S. […]
As every year the International Tourism Fair (ITB) in Berlin was an important date for more than 100,000 tourism professionals and around 60,000 thousand visitors. The Fortified Churches Foundation presented the landscape of fortified churches and found many new stakeholders and interested tourists. The Foundation shared a booth with the […]
The Fortified Churches Foundation is proud to present the new pocket-sized booklet titled „Churches and Fortifications in Transylvania“. It was published in the first weeks of 2017 and can now be obtained in three languages. It will formally be presented to a wider audience at the International Tourism Fair in […]
From 9 to 11 November the European association “Future for Religious Heritage” invited it’s members and other participants to the 2016 Biennial Conference titled: “Tourists, Travellers & Pilgrims – Encountering Religious Heritage in Today’s Europe” to Vicenza, Italy. Besides a great number of speeches, presentations, discussions, and debates the FRH […]
The Fortified Churches Foundation is currently producing a travelling exhibition titled: “The Transylvanian Landscape of Fortified Churches. A European Cultural Heritage”. The concept and production were developed and organized in cooperation with the project partners Technical University Berlin and the German Cultural Forum for Central and Eastern Europe. Art historian […]
German Federal President Joachim Gauck, who was on a state visit in Romania and Bulgaria in the middle of June, visited Transylavania on 21 June, accompanied by his Romanian colleague, President Klaus Werner Johannis. Among other things, the program included encounters with representatives of the Evangelic Church A. C. in […]
Es war eine ereignisreiche Woche für die Mitarbeiter der Stiftung Kirchenburgen, die in Berlin zum sechsten Mal in Folge an der weltweit größten Reisemesse Internationale Tourismusbörse (ITB) teilnahmen.