The ensemble of the Ighiu Reformed Church

If you arrive here on Sunday, or on religious holidays, you will be surprised to witness services held in Hungarian, but also Romanian, or German, accompanied by music from the organ built in a Sibiu workshop at the end of the 18th century, which is still functional.

The church was built between 1781-1783, right in the middle of a fortified enclosure from the 15th century. In fact, on its site there was a Romanesque church built by Saxon settlers some 500 years earlier. All these constructions were built using the famous Ighiu stone.

In the church yard is also the reformed parish house, the former evangelical parish house, built in 1485, but also several graves of personalities who played a role in the history of the community here and beyond. The current church, a former evangelical church, can be integrated, from a stylistic point of view, late baroque and rococo.

The bell tower is 52 meters high, being one of the tallest towers in this area, if we exclude those belonging to the churches in the cities. It is worth going up to the top floor to admire a special landscape!

At the beginning of the 13th century, in 1206, the communities of Cricău, Ighiu (from Alba County) and Romoș (from Hunedoara County), more precisely the Saxon population from these regions, known as "primi hospites regni", received significant privileges from the Hungarian king Andrew II. In accordance with this act, the king released them from the obligation to house and feast the voivode and to pay certain taxes, obligations that were otherwise imposed on villagers in other circumstances.

The current church was built in the latter part of the 18th century (1781-1783). A part of the fortified enclosure, dating from the 15th-16th centuries, including the bastion at the entrance, incorporated into a construction dating from 1712, has survived from the old complex.

In the surrounding region there are many interesting tourist attractions that are revealed to visitors. One of these is represented by the Roman fort from Ighiu, located in Alba County, on the top of Măgulici hill, on the right side of the Ampoi River, approximately 1 km upstream from the village of Șard. The role of this fortification was to control the access through the Ampoi gorge to the areas with gold mining activities.

In the cemetery around the church is the grave of the pre-Enlightenment scholar Péter Bod (1712-1769), former reformed parish priest in Ighiu, Hungarian historian, theologian, writer and librarian who also contributed to the writing of a history of Romanians in Transylvania.