The Reformed Church of Berea
During the Árpád dynasty, the settlement was owned by the Kaplony clan and the first document, which mentions the village dates back to 1204. Bere was one of their oldest possessions recorded in early documents, but later they shared it with the Kún family from Rozsály, the Darahy family and the Berei family of the Csák clan. It is likely, that during the 12th century a church had been built on this property of the Kaplony clan, Simon was the minister of this church, and, according to the record of the Papal Tithe from the years 1332-1334, he was one of those who paid the smallest amount of money in the archdeaconry of Szatmár. In 1338, there was an agreement between the wife of János Balkányi of the Gutkeled clan and Miklós Terebesi of Csák clan, which said that the church was dedicated to the Holy Spirit and its gift belongs to the latter one. The church was mentioned again in 1428, in a papal supplication.
At the end of the 16th century the population of Bere and its landlords joined the Protestant Reformation and the Protestant congregation belonged to the Presbytery of Solnocul de Mijloc. In 1604, it was mentioned as an independent congregation for the first time, its first known minister was Mihály Ardai in 1652, and its civil registers were recorded since 1765. In the 19th century, Berea became part of the Presbytery of Carei.
It was recently discovered that walls dating back to the medieval period were hiding under the modern surface. This brick building consists of a nave with a rectangular ground-plan, a square-based southern extension of the nave and a western tower, and only one quarter of the building is the remain of those two wall sections, which were discovered during the wall exploration in 2010 and during this process it was proved, that these walls are the remains of the longitudinal walls of a nave built in the Romanesque period. An investigations of the walls and archaeological excavations carried out between 2012 and 2013 revealed the former arrangement of the western part and the spatial system of the church. The church is one of the smallest medieval churches of the Partium, however it has got a relatively complex spatial system.
Originally, the bottom of the gallery situated on the ground floor was held by three barrel vaults and two arcade pillars. The narrow staircase built in the depth of the northern walls led to the gallery. According to the information from the 19th century, a small tower was erected above the middle part of the gallery. The church had an elongated, round-arched apse, the southern door was also round-arched –only a part of it is still existing – and its windows were narrow and short. The foundations of another church having almost the same dimensions and ground-plan were found under the floor.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the very small medieval church seemed to be not large enough for the Reformed congregation, so in 1733 the eastern parts were demolished and the nave was extended and got a uniformed, single-bayed interior, then in 1830 it was also expanded southward. In the 1860s a tower with a classicized facade was erected and during process the medieval gallery was probably demolished.
A mural illustrating Holy Mary with the Cloak, painted during the reign of King Sigismund of Luxembourg, was discovered under the plaster in 1993, during a restoration carried out inside the building, and in 2012 the fragments of the picture illustrating the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ were found. Illustrating a typically Byzantine theme, for example the Transfiguratio Domin (Transfiguration of Jesus Christ) was really rare in the medieval western fine art. The picture created probably in the 13th century, illustrates the moment when Jesus took up three of his apostles – Peter, John and Jacob – to a high mountain not long before his crucifixion and “he transformed before their eyes: his face was shining like the sun and his clothes were shining white as light. And suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared in the front of them as they started to talk to Jesus.”
In 2013, during the renovation, the whole interior and exterior of the building was renewed and the discovered medieval mural fragments were exhibited. Despite the fact that only one quarter of the building dates from the medieval period, it is one of the most fascinating churches of Satu Mare county and also the only one, which has a mural.
