Șeica Mare (Marktschelken in German, Nagyselyk in Hungarian) is quite close to Sibiu, on the northern road going towards Mediaș, between Slimnic and Axente Sever. I shall begin by saying that Marktschelken was a rather important German community, with its own coat of arms and with a seat of its own (Schelker Stuhl), part of the Two Seats (Zwei Stühle, a stand-alone administrative unit, together with Mediasch). In this article we will go around its fortified church… or what’s left of it…

As we approach the church, I will invite you to admire the… bullshit… Yes, I am not speaking figuratively but literally: there is dung on the road. It is what it is… and there is nothing we can do about it! Actually, I can digitally alter the image so as to make it more tolerable but then… it would be “censored”, so to speak… I suppose that there is a correlation between the amount of excrements on the streets and the degree of civilization of a given nation… if you know what I mean… In Romania, fortunately, people do not defecate on the streets, as it is the norm in many places of this world. Rather, this is a sign that large animals still roam on the streets (on the main national road, to be precise), and judging by the shape and quantity, there can either be horses, donkeys or cows. Horses are typically used for traction (carts) and are still important parts of the lives of the people in some areas, as there are mud roads in this country where only the horses can enter and then also get out in one piece (forests, for instance). The donkeys are a bit “the ponies of the horses’ world” but they are also used for traction, whimsy as they are. The last possible explanation for the poo traces would be cows, and this means that in this community there are still peasants who keep cows for milk. Either way we see the situation, the presence of large animals in the community means that a close-to-nature lifestyle is still present here.

But I guess we should return to our trip and have another glance at the church, which is in the condition you see… Of course it was also closed but – something rather different from other similar places – the locals seemed annoyed by my presence and quite hostile, as they stared at me at length… Now, some infos about Șeica Mare (the big Șeica, as there is also a small Șeica nearby). The place was first attested in the year 1309 as Selk, but the archeological investigations have shown that the place is inhabited since the Stone Age, with several later traces from the Bronze Age (the Celts, the La Tène period). The population is now around 2.800 inhabitants and the majority is Romanian, with the Hungarians lingering at around 3% and the Germans completely vanished.

The fortified church has been built around the year 1300 in the Gothic style. It was dedicated to Saint Martin and fortified around the year 1400. The fortifications were completely demolished in 1906, resulting what can be seen today. And since we are here, part of the greater Commune of Șeica Mare is a small village called Buia (in Romanian) and Bólya (in Hungarian). For those of us who lived in Cluj-Napoca for some time, the name Bolya is familiar, as the University of Cluj is also called Babeș-Bolyai. Actually, in 1775, Farkas Bolyai was born here (a Hungarian mathematician mainly known for his work in geometry). His son, János Bolyai, was born in Cluj-Napoca and continued the works of his father in mathematics (geometry, too), becoming even more famous. For this reason, the Cluj University bears his name. A great story has started in these places, proving that smart people are born everywhere, and it is a matter of opportunity (read: luck, as talent and work is not enough) so as to overcome their condition, become known and leave something of value behind them…