Sometimes, chasing a new destination doesn't always mean a place to see or a hike to follow but more of meeting a new feeling and enjoying a mood that you won't find in too many places.

Not for a few times, we got to explore some less known paths of our beloved home country that led us to a genuine piece of history but which won't come with some of those popular buildings people take photos of, but more with some sad stories that can have an impact on you even hundreds of years later since everything happened.
And when you get to see this type of places on a rainy day and in the middle of nowhere, then most likely everything will have a bigger impact on you than it would happen on a sunny day.
However, it's hard to imagine Biserica Ciuntita being surrounded by a clear blue sky or by a rainbow because as beautiful and unique the scenery is, as depressive it turns out as soon as you make a few more steps on the way to the church.
In Transylvania, it's not a new thing to see most of the religious places that are at least 200-300 years old to turn out in ruins more than the citadels themselves because not for a few times these buildings were the main target of many foreign armies that wished to conquer this part of Romania, but that's also because they weren't fully just a place where people could go to pray because they also had defensive purposes which I can't judge since all these lands seen so many sad events and fights during the passage of time.

Though, as sad as these leftovers of the church look like, I can't imagine what the scenery looks like in Ukraine when perhaps it's hard to spend a few minutes without hearing bombings, gunshots or people screaming all over the place.

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Though, what I try to say with this is that, unfortunately, history seems like being put on repeat every few hundreds of years which is definitely a crazy thing in 2022 when technology is evolving so fast and we should be more interested in other things than killing thousands of people and ruining the lives of a few other millions just for the sake of seeing a country's name be written larger on the world's map.

Because that's greedy and I'm sure it makes no sense to many people out there...

Anyway, back to our church which made us get into a hide and seek game because the indicated area on GPS is not with the right destination of this one but which can be still noticed from the place where the little gadget will indicate you to stop the car because it's just 5-7 minutes away from that place and it can be actually seen in the distance if you pay enough attention to it.
However, even though it's known as Biserica Ciuntita, you will only be able to find it on the map with the Hungarian name Csonkatorony which is the result of another long debate between Romanians and Hungarians that are populating some parts of our country that due to some happenings in the past they still consider these parts as being theirs and hence why most of the things are written in Hungarian.
But I won't get too deep into this subject because again, it's a debate that most likely will never die and I honestly have no problem exploring the less known paths from this part of Transylvania no matter if they are written in Romanian or Hungarian as long as you won't be sent home with the mention that you are stepping on their territory, lol.
But I've met both friendly and less sociable Hungarians, so I guess it just depends on the locals of each area.

However, the church is just 1km away from Tomesti which is a tiny village with 2,770 residents only so considering that the ruins of the religious place are somewhere in the middle of a valley, you most likely won't meet any locals out there. At least, this is what happened to us.

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As soon as you make your way to the actual destination you were looking for, you will be welcomed by a little panel which even though we are used to seeing this with information about what that place represented in the past, this one was mostly occupied by drawings with the original architectural plan of the building and just a few rows written but which were again, just in the Hungarian language.

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So we decided to take it as it is and approach the building which will look like some sort of a building only from a specific angle where the wall is not broken entirely, with the promise to search for more information in other places so we can promote this further. And that's exactly what I did before starting to write down this article.

That's how we found out that the church which is more likely considered a tower by some of the locals, dates from the 15th century and it represents one of the most important and respected ruins of the area that found its peace on a hill up to 767 meters, the building itself measuring another 11 meters in height.

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The tower is actually just a tiny part of a church that was covering a bigger surface in this region, which was surrounded by many such towers and an imposing fortified wall that was keeping safe the gothic building which had both a defensive and religious role.

However, the most interesting part here is that no matter how many battles the church has been part of, after the biggest piece of the building turned into ruins the people still used the space from here as a cemetery which presents some of the graves even in 2022.

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But along with the tombs left between the ruins, there is also another fully functional cemetery located nearby which was used as an excuse to make the place more frequented by people so more stories from the past of this village will come out since it sure represents one of those treasures forgotten in the middle of nowhere while people focus too much on modern stuff. Additionally, not long time ago there have been started some archaeological diggings still with this purpose which I'm sure they will bring in front of us some surprises really soon.

In plus, there can be still noticed the methods of how the building was raised using natural burnt stones and then whitewashed which is also used on the frames of the windows and doors. Or at least, where these used to be.

Though, reaching the church wasn't so easy in the past because the soil surrounding it is mostly composed of swamps so a few hundreds of years ago you could see people going by boat on the way to the religious place which also formed a lake a little bit down the hill that has a quite strange legend.

It turns out that before the lake existed, there used to be the house of the bell ringer who was hiding all kinds of things from his superiors so when they figured out that something bad is going on and asked about it, the bell ringer said he didn't see anything and he swore on his house which started to be swallowed by the soil instantly, taking him in the underground and being formed a lake on the surface.

These, along with the unique view and the whole solitude of the place, are just a few reasons why more people should be aware of this place and even visit it if they get the chance to.

Biserica Ciuntita can be reached by following all the way to Tomesti and then drive 1km away from it on the West, being just 26 km away from Miercurea Ciuc while chasing the county road DJ126.

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT TRIP! 🗾

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