Porumbăcean, Claudiu (szerk.): Satu Mare. Studii şi comunicări. Seria istorie-etnografie-artă 33/2. (2017)
Istorie
CONTRIBUŢII LA ISTORIA BISERICII ŞI COMUNITĂŢII ROMÂNEŞTI DIN LELEI Anamaria FLORESCU Abstract: (Contribution to the history of the Romanian Church and Community of Lelei) Lelei Village (translated in Hungarian: Lele) is situated in the southeast of Satu Mare County, being part ofHodod Commune. The village is placed south-east of the communal residence (Hodod), on its surface passing „the border” between Sălaj and Satu Mare County. The village was documentary attested in 1330 as Lelej, then successively Kis-Lele in 1337, Lelee in 1475, Lelew in 1514, Leleh in 1549. From the existing demographic data, it results that the population of Hungarian ethnicity has always dominated numerically, but there was also a Romanian minority. Romanians aren’t remembered as inhabitants of the village until 1733. From the end of the 19th century until the interwar period, the Romanians represented between 15 and 20% of the population of the village.The Romanian wooden church from Lelei is on the list of historical monuments of Romania and is registered with the SM-ll-m-B-05321 reference code. Unlike the other wooden churches from „Codru” ethnographic area, the church from Lelei didn’t attract too much attention of the researchers, it is usually only mentioned, without details. It was also not known precisely the year of construction, some of the references mentioning the 18th century, others mentioning the 1780s more precisely, and others, such as the monumental guide ofHodod commune -1870. No paper cites the source on which basis the dating was made. As far as we are concerned, we consider that the information provided in Petri Mór’s Salaj’s monograph is conclusive. He reminds that the Greek Catholics from the village had a wooden church in 1750. In some Greek-Catholic schematisms from the interwar period, it is indicated as the date of the construction of the church the age of1728. The small church is situated on a hill on the eastern edge of the village. It was built up of wood, but during the interwar period, the villagers „modernized” it by plastering its wood bars. It is one of the few wooden churches preserved in the „Codru” ethnographic area of Satu Mare County and certainly the least known.The most valuable icons in the church are a glass icon picturing the Holy Family, and two on the wood, representing Jesus Christ „Pantocrator”. The villagers think they are at least from the 19th century. There are also several Catholic worship statuettes and prayer books from the 18th and 19th centuries written in both Latin and Cyrillic characters that reflect the history of the church in the last three centuries: it belonged to the Greek-Catholic cult until its dissolution by the Communist regime in 1948 and since then belongs to the Orthodox confession. The church is surrounded by an old cemetery. Near the church, there is the resting place of four priests and the Satu Mare - Studii şi Comunicări, nr. XXXIII/II, 2017, p. 9-29.
