Romania: a river delta, a painted church and fortified village churches

The Romanian Cultural Institute describes the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve as 5,800 km² across six geographic units. The delta itself covers 4,178 km² and lies 82% in Romania and 18% in Ukraine. Its three main branches are Chilia, Sulina and Sfântu Gheorghe. The Institute attributes the connected Letea and Caraorman sandbanks to Pleistocene deposits, either carried in by the river or shifted by the Black Sea’s circular current. The UNESCO-listed property lies in Tulcea County; the Institute also describes the reserve’s channels, lakes, reed beds and floating islets of vegetation.[6][1]

UNESCO groups eight churches in the north of Moldavia, raised between the late 15th and late 16th centuries, with frescoes covering their outer walls. Romania’s National Heritage Institute lists Arbore, Humor, Moldovița, Pătrăuți, Probota, the church of the St John the New Monastery in Suceava, Sucevița and Voroneț, places this painted-exterior tradition in northern Moldavia (Bucovina) and describes the paintings as fresco finished a secco, covering the walls as a whole. At Voroneț, in Suceava County, the founding inscription records that Stephen the Great began the church on 26 May 1488 and completed it on 14 September that year. Art historian Constantin Ion Ciobanu considers the paintings in the nave and sanctuary likely to date from July 1496 through spring 1497. He dates the porch paintings and exterior façades to 1547, initiated by Metropolitan Grigore Roșca.[2][3][4]

UNESCO inscribes seven villages in southern Transylvania, founded by the Transylvanian Saxons, whose fortified churches show how building styles changed between the 13th and 16th centuries. The National Heritage Institute’s account mentions Prejmer, Viscri, Biertan, Saschiz, Valea Viilor and Câlnic among its examples. It begins with the Saxon settlers who arrived from the 12th century; the rights of those in the Sibiu Province were set down in the Andreanum, signed by King Andrew II in 1224. After the Tatar invasion of 1241–42 the crown encouraged fortified settlements, and after the great Ottoman invasion of 1491 all churches in the Saxon villages on royal land, about 200, were fortified in the first quarter of the 16th century. The Institute sorts the churches into three types: those with a fortified enclosure, such as Prejmer; fortified churches such as Biertan, whose enclosure has three rings; and church-redoubts, a type it says began with Saschiz in 1496. It also cites the fortified church at Dârjiu as an example of Székely influence on fortification.[5][3]