Wall Paintings “of Lives” in Aita Mare

The Unitarian people of Aita Mare can go to pray in a seven hundred-year-old but completely renovated church. The church, built on the Varjúvár Hill, became Unitarian already at the beginning of the Reformation, and the surrounding walls protected the community from earthly dangers. After the renovation, it is now not only one of the oldest, but also one of the most beautiful historic buildings in the region. The wall paintings are a major asset of the church. It was known earlier that the whitewash hid frescoes, as already mentioned by József Huszka, ethnographer and art historian, in his 1885 article on the Szekler wall paintings of the Legend of Saint Ladislau. However, the paintings, which were covered up during renovation in the 1870s, were only uncovered again when excavations began in 2019.

But it's not just the renewed church that attracts visitors to this large village on the western edge of Covasna County. Nagyajta was the cradle of great personalities, poets, historians, and artists, among others, it was the birthplace of János Kriza, Unitarian bishop and author of the folklore collection “Vadrózsák” (Wild Roses). Other similarly famous people were also born there: the historian Mihály Cserey, the Kossuth Prize-winning actor József Bihari, and in the immediate neighbourhood, in Aita Medie, a less well-known but locally highly esteemed soldier, Sándor Péterfi, a hussar captain of the National Guard, the hero of the Battle of Tömös during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. 

You can expect a full day of activities if you visit Aita Mare. 

Samu Csinta