Jiu Valley ♰
Hunedoara
Explore The GATE of TRANSYLVANIA.
The Sânonor Church from Petroșani city, Hunedoara county – Jiu VALLEY, is not just a church. Now, the wood smells of old and slivers of light pierce the darkness through the holes in the walls made by time. How long? The altar is not made for tall people, the wood is bent and polished by the number of people who sat on it listening to the liturgy, there is not much room to stand, the entrance is narrow, there are many cobwebs, there is a sticky dust, the erased icons are nailed in rivets and so you have to learn with patience! This is the only way to see how carefully a sacred place is made.
The Sânonor (Sânonilor) Church existing today is mentioned in 1790 (mentioned, not built!) and was built long before the mentioned year, on a plinth made of river stone respecting the dimensions and shape of a much older construction, destroyed by burning according to chronicles. Fire destroys everything but stone. And the only stone object that could be a permanent landmark for the construction of a new Church of the Sânons is the Altar Table, Sancti Sanctos, the most sacred place where the secret ritual is officiated, the pure place where the Divinity descends after prayers.
It is the first time we see and can examine the Altar Table in the Sânonilor Church, an amazing stone artifact, consisting of a piece of an ancient Geto-Dacians column on top of which a column pedestal or a millstone has been placed!
The Church of Sânonilor was rebuilt on an astronomical Geto-Dacians observatory and preserved the architectural details of such a special building. The niches and openings in the wooden altar, some of them devoid of practical utility, such as the opening behind the Altar Table half a meter from the floor, the different size of the windows and their placement, reveal an otherwise natural precedence if we take into account the place where the construction is located, on a straight mountain plateau, next to a running water, isolated in a former large orchard / forest, the positioning of the stone menhirs next to the Church, the impressive opening to the heavenly vault, the location in an area full of Dacian fortresses and sanctuaries, the existence of the Sarcedotes whose preoccupation with studying and interpreting the movements of the stars was praised / appreciated by many ancient historians.
In such a place, the presence of the Altar Table, this amazing piece from the past, does not seem accidental at all. The Altar table consists of two parts: a leg consisting of a piece of a Dacian column that preserves the authentic ornamentation and a large disk that seems to be the base/pedestal of an ancient column or a millstone.
The leg of the Table, i.e. the piece of the column, seems to be overturned, it is placed upside down if we were to be guided by the shape and direction of the chisel marks that shaped it (most of the blows come from the bottom up in the conditions where there is a lot more practical to carve by hitting from top to bottom) being very well embedded in the first foundation on which the wooden building was rebuilt. After preliminary research it is possible that the Leg of the Table has a double length inside the wooden floor which the carpenter skillfully shaped around the column to integrate it into the new Christian altar rebuilt from a much older footprint. Explore 👑 Jiu Valley Hunedoara ♰ The GATE of TRANSYLVANIA 💪