Churches are the most widespread sights in Romania and every region has a type of its own: Maramureș has kept its tall-towered wooden churches, eight of them on the UNESCO list; southern Transylvania has the fortified churches of the Saxons, ringed by walls and towers, and the Székely Land churches with painted coffered ceilings; Oltenia has hundreds of small 18th- and 19th-century wooden churches; the big cities have their Orthodox and Catholic cathedrals and the Gothic churches of the old town. Fortified churches, cathedrals, synagogues and mosques belong here too; monasteries, with their communities and precincts, have a category of their own, Monasteries. Most churches are open at service times; in villages the key is often kept by a neighbour or the parish priest.
The Black Church in Brașov is the largest Gothic church between Vienna and Istanbul, and the Biertan Fortified Church and the Viscri Fortified Church are the most visited of the Saxon ones. In Maramureș, the Bârsana Wooden Church and the Șurdești Wooden Church are a good start, while in the Hațeg Country St Nicholas Church in Densuș, built from Roman stones, is among the oldest in the country. In Bucharest, the People's Salvation Cathedral is one of the largest Orthodox churches in the world.
101 results
Top 20The Saxon church on the hill in the middle of the village, guarded by three rings of walls and towers; inside, Romania's largest polyptych altarpiece and a door with a lock from 1515.
Top 100Romania's oldest and longest cathedral, Romanesque and Gothic, at the heart of the Alba Carolina Fortress; it holds the tomb of John Hunyadi and the first Renaissance chapel in Transylvania.
Top 100The Orthodox cathedral inside Alba Carolina Fortress, built in 1921–1922 for the coronation of Ferdinand and Marie as king and queen of Greater Romania, with a 58 m bell tower and royal portraits in fresco.
Top 100A 13th-century count's residence, bought by the Saxon villagers in 1430 and turned into a peasant fortress: a Romanesque keep, two rings of walls and a chapel, in a valley near Sebeș.
Top 100A Late Gothic Saxon church beside the DN13, with a bell tower modelled on Sighișoara's Clock Tower; on the hill above the village stand the walls of a 14th-century peasant fortress.
Top 100The only Székely and Unitarian church in the UNESCO fortified-church site: a Gothic church with 1419 frescoes of the legend of Saint Ladislaus, whose fortress villagers still use to store their bacon.
Top 100One of the largest Saxon fortified churches: a Gothic church on a cross-shaped plan, ringed by an oval wall with over 270 refuge rooms reached by timber galleries.
Top 100The Saxon church in a vineyard valley near Mediaș, with its choir turned into a defence tower, an almost intact oval wall and a wood-and-iron portcullis that has survived for centuries.
Top 100A small white church on the hill above the village, grown from a 12th-century Romanesque chapel and ringed by walls, towers and grain galleries, in a Saxon village that has survived almost intact.
A 14th-century Gothic church built by the noble Apafi family, with the largest ensemble of Gothic frescoes in Transylvania and a polyptych altarpiece that has stood in place for more than five centuries.
Romania's National Cathedral, on Arsenal Hill next to the Palace of the Parliament: a 127 m Neo-Byzantine church with its altar consecrated in 2018 and its painting consecrated in 2025, open to visitors only in announced periods.
A Gothic and Baroque church on a rocky hill in the Ciuc region, ringed by a defensive wall with a tower; inside is a Gothic font from the 15th century.
Romania's largest Gothic church, built by the Saxons of Brașov between 1383 and 1477; inside are the 1839 Buchholz organ and a rare collection of Anatolian carpets.
The Cathedral of the Ascension, rebuilt in neoclassical style between 1830 and 1837: a portico of six Corinthian columns and two towers dominate Piața Libertății, and inside lies the tomb of a martyr bishop.
A Romanesque basilica from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, left almost unaltered, on the rocky top of St Michael's Hill, ringed by a defensive wall and looking out to the Făgăraș Mountains.
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