The Sârbi Susani church stands in the village of Sârbi, Budești commune, in the Cosău valley of Maramureș County, in the historical region of Maramureș, now in Romania. This church is a surviving representative of the oldest wooden churches of Maramureș: those with only one level of eaves.
Construction
The wooden church from Sârbi Susani, was dendrochronologically dated from the winter of 1638–1639, i.e., from the moment the timbers were felled; thus the construction might have taken place during 1639 or very soon after that. This church appears to have been built by the same master carpenter as those from Slătioara (before 1639) and Budești Josani (1643).
This church is quite modest in size, yet still really charming. Around its sanctuary the master carpenter played with the consoles under the eaves purlins like nowhere else. His devotion for this sacred building can be further read in the warm way he softened the plain timber walls with the rope moulding all around, with the small cuts in the frame of the southern window and even of the precinct gate, which, although fragmentary, is probably the oldest one surviving in Maramureș. The noble founders of this modest house of worship might have been either poor or conservative, if they couldn't afford or did not wanted bells for a tower, iron for the hinges of the doors, carved stones for the altar table or glasses for the windows. Whatever the situation was, the carpenter had to solve the shortage of resources in a very traditional way, replacing the missing materials with pieces of wood. These could have been the reasons why the church from Sârbi Susani retains the most ancient features in the local architecture.
The enigmatic message on the portal
The best-preserved portal in Maramureș, which entirely displays the high professional grade of a church carpenter, is in Sârbi Susani. Among the various designs recorded on the portals around Maramureș this is without a doubt the most intricate and rich in detail known. Due to its rich symbolism, it needs three levels of reading: descriptive, mythological, and Christian.
The distinctive features that immediately attract attention are the moulding rope inclosing an elaborate composition of triple crosses and rosettes of various patterns and sizes. The triple crosses occupy the middle field of the three pieces of the portal, whereas the largest rosettes appear on both sides of each cross. The upper corners are covered by large sun rosettes while at the sill the straight mouldings turn round inwards closing the work. The entire composition has a symmetrical scheme, yet with many different details. Finally, a multitude of small triangles breaks up the background in shifting spots of light and shadow.
We need to further focus on this exceptional portal and its potential mythological message. It has been long emphasised the importance of the solar symbols in the local vernacular art. Yet, this portal displays only two rosettes that can be related to the sun and possibly the cross as a symbol of Jesus Christ, which actually is also connected to the sun. The other symbols are rather linked to the other celestial body, i.e., the Moon. The relief moulding rope seems to indicate the presence of the snake, which, like other monsters in ancient legends, protects the sacred room. The snake is a dominant motif on the church portals throughout the Carpathian Mountains, most often in stylized form, but in a few cases even in plain shapes. According to Mircea Eliade, the snake was considered a lunar beast in the old European beliefs, and therefore it is possible to read the lower part of the portal, on each side, as a full or new moon coiled up by a snake. In the same context, we should move our attention upon the indented pattern around the aperture, which in the imagery of the local needle women represents the water wave or the river water, possibly the life-giving water of a spring, surprisingly identical with the old Egyptian hieroglyph for running water. Consequently, the small triangles filling the space in between the rosettes and crosses may represent small drops of rain fertilising the fields.