The church of Săpânța, in the middle of the Merry Cemetery

Over twenty light fittings designed and made by us, in solid brass, for the Nativity of the Mother of God church in Săpânța. The three chandeliers in the nave alone have some 500 component parts each. The work was done in stages, between 2021 and 2023, as the parish could carry each step.Every fitting is a new piece, designed and made in our own workshop — none of them reconditioned or brought in from elsewhere.

500component parts in a single central chandelier

Ø 1.500 mmthe diameter of the nave chandeliers, with a 2,200 mm body

20+new fittings: chandeliers, sconces, lanterns

Brasssolid, cast and pierced in the Bucharest workshop

The central solid brass chandelier made by FD.STIL for the church in Săpânța, lit beneath the painted vault — One of the three chandeliers in the nave: two rings of arms, 24 and 12, plus four bulbs in the brass basket at the base.

What lighting the church in Săpânța has

The parish came with a request that is simple to state and hard to solve: lighting for a whole church, in one language, from the chandelier in the middle of the nave to the lantern in the porch. You do not buy that from a catalogue — it is drawn for that particular building, for its spans, its heights and the painting that shows between the arms.

In the nave and the narthex

3 chandeliers — Ø 1,500 mm, a 2,200 mm body, with 24 + 12 arms and four more bulbs in the brass basket; 20 metres of suspension chain for each
chandeliers with 12, 8 and 6 arms — for the lower vaults and for the narthex
3 chandeliers with 3 arms — under the side arcades
2 bracket sconces with 6 arms
a Ø 500 mm spherical lamp — suspended at four points

In the porch and outside

2 monumental lanterns — 800 × 1,300 mm, with cast brass parts
4 wall sconces — 120 × 230 × 600 mm, later remade from one arm to three

The finish throughout is Antique I brass: a polished surface, an even patina and clear lacquer over it. The same finish on every fitting, so that the stages do not show.

Why a chandelier has 500 component parts

A chandelier like this is not assembled from tubes cut to length. The rosettes, the basket, the arm ends, the pierced rings and every visible piece are separate parts — cast, cut and filed one by one, then mounted on the frame. That is where the roughly 500 parts of a single central fitting come from.

The two rings of arms, 24 and 12, sit at different heights precisely so that the light does not fall in one block. The four bulbs in the basket at the base shine upwards, into the pierced work, and keep the piece alive even when everything else is switched off.

Solid brass is not a workshop preference but a condition of durability: a piece made of thin sheet deforms under its own weight and under the heat of the bulbs, and within a few years the arms no longer sit in the same plane. A cast arm stays where it was put.

For the same reason we keep the moulds and the working drawings. If an element breaks ten years from now, another identical one is made — not a “similar” one. See how we work in the workshop.

Looking up through the pierced basket of the chandelier, towards the painted dome of the church in Săpânța — The pierced basket, seen from below. The design is meant to read from nine metres away too, against the painting.

Detail of the workmanship: the pierced tiers and the crystals of the large chandelier in Săpânța — The pierced tiers of the large chandelier, with the crystals set in brass mounts.

Which church stands in the Merry Cemetery

Săpânța is first documented on 30 October 1373. The old wooden church burned down on Easter night in 1880, on the site of the present one. The church standing today was built between 1882 and 1886, of stone and brick, under the priest Ioan Huba Junior, with a single tower that also serves as the belfry. It is dedicated to the Nativity of the Mother of God.

The fresco painting was made between 1962 and 1964 and consecrated in October 1966. Since 2007 the church has been under an extensive programme of rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation, which gave it the appearance it has today.

This is the church in the middle of the Merry Cemetery — the one surrounded by the blue crosses painted by Stan Ioan Pătraș and his successors, the place people travel to Maramureș for from all over the world.

That changed the way we looked at the work. A light fitting in a house is seen by a few dozen people. Here tens of thousands come in a single year — and many of them look up before they look at anything else.

The nave of the church in Săpânța, with the FD.STIL chandeliers hanging in front of the iconostasis — The nave, seen from the entrance: the two large chandeliers on the axis of the church, up to the iconostasis.

What the other fittings look like

A brass chandelier with 12 arms, under the white vault with exposed brick ribs of the narthex — The 12-arm chandelier in the narthex, under the white vault with its exposed brick ribs.

A brass chandelier with six arms, against the painted vault of the church in Săpânța — The six-arm chandelier, against the painted vault.

A brass bracket sconce with six arms and a sphere at its base, fixed to the painted wall of the church in Săpânța — The bracket sconce: the brass arm comes out of the wall and the six-arm ring hangs from it on chains.

The monumental brass lantern in the porch of the church in Săpânța, lit at blue hour — The lantern in the porch, 800 × 1,300 mm. It hangs outdoors, so the brass is protected against rain and frost.

The church in Săpânța seen from above, its tower roofed in coloured tiles and the blue crosses of the Merry Cemetery around it — The church, seen from above, with the blue crosses of the Merry Cemetery around it.

The axis of the church in Săpânța: the painted dome, the large chandelier and the iconostasis — The axis of the church: the dome, the chandelier, the iconostasis. Three things that had to hold together.

How the work went

2021 The design and the order for the three large chandeliers in the nave.
2022 Making them, then delivering and installing them with our own team.
2022–2023 Second stage: the smaller chandeliers, the bracket sconces and the spherical lamp.
2023 Third stage: the monumental lanterns in the porch and the outdoor sconces.

None of this happened at once. The parish ordered stage by stage, while we kept the drawing, the finish and the proportions unchanged from one stage to the next — which is why the church looks today as though all the lighting had been put up in a single day.

How we work with parishes and architects

We make chandeliers, sconces, candlesticks and lanterns in brass, drawn for your own church, and we restore old fittings — including ones that came out of other workshops. We work in stages if that is how the budget comes together, and we keep the drawings so that the later stages come out identical.

Send us a few photographs of the interior and the heights up to the vault. We will come back with a proposal and a quotation.

office@fdstil.com WhatsApp 0790 360 000

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