The wooden church “Assumption of Mary”, formerly known as “Vârgolici” Church, is a historic architectural monument from Dorohoi, dating from 1779, registered on the List of Historical Monuments of 2010 with Code BT-II-m-b-01976.
The church was built on a foundation of rocks, with oak beams. The oaks were selected from the very forest located where the church now stands. Back then, the possibilities were modest, the Turkish occupation and the Phanariot leaders asked for great tributes and the resources, including those of the priests, were limited.
According to the latest information discovered by the priest Catalin Ifrim in 2008, the church was founded by a priest named Vasile who was, at the same time, a builder, and carved the walls of the church.
The church is shaped as a ship, having a slanted roof, and a rope, a seaman’s thick rope, symbolizing Christian hope, carved on the outer walls. The church was never painted, neither on the inside, nor on the outside. Only the iconostasis was cleaned and varnished, in Byzantine style, illustrating Orthodox saints having gaunt faces after fasting and spiritual experiences, as described in the monographs of the priest and manciple Constantin Ciocoiu, in the period from 1900 to 1915.
It was cleaned and varnished in 1895, and underwent repairs in 1904 and 1919. Within some subsequent restoration works, the inside walls, blackened by past centuries, were cleaned; the bell tower and porch were rebuilt, and the iconostasis was restored.
The church accommodates several religious books dating from the 18th and early 19th centuries: The Triodion, from 1747, The Gospel, from 1812, The Significance of Gospels, from 1805 and The Nine Biblical Odes, from 1815. Currently, the church is restored, but it remains a lasting architectural model for the successors.
In this modest church, priests suffered adverse times and prayed for the good of these ancestral lands, for centuries on end. The fact that it still exists today, preserving its old architecture, with only minor works of consolidation, proves that the builder poured his heart and faith in erecting it. The man does, indeed, sanctify the place.
