Updated: August 2026 · FD.STIL
The church of Săpânța, in the middle of the Merry Cemetery
Over twenty light fittings were designed and made by us in solid brass, for the Nativity of the Mother of God church in Săpânța. The work was carried out in stages, over 2021–2023, step by step, as the parish grew. Every fitting is a new piece, conceived, drawn and made in our own workshop — not a reconditioning job and not brought in from elsewhere.
What lighting the church in Săpânța has
For this church the parish came with a request that looked simple but was complicated 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, and so a collection takes shape that belongs to the space, one that allows for its spans, its heights and the painting glimpsed 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 of this kind cannot be assembled from tubes cut to length. The rosettes, the basket, the arm ends, the pierced rings and every visible piece are made separately — cast, cut and filed, then mounted with precision 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 fixed in its place.
For the same reason we keep the moulds and the working drawings, so that years from now, should an element break, we can make another identical one — not a “similar” one. See how we work in the workshop.
Which church stands in the Merry Cemetery
Săpânța has a long history, first documented as far back as 30 October 1373. The old wooden church burned down on Easter night in 1880; it stood on the very 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; it has 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, 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.
The long history, the constant flow of people and the way the interior space is perceived — a space that makes you look up — were the defining features of the place, and they shaped the way we saw and approached the work.
What the other fittings look like
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.
The work was not done all at once: the parish ordered stage by stage, so it fell to us to keep the drawings, the finishes and the proportions unchanged from one stage to the next, which is why the church looks today as though all the lighting belonged to a single unified collection.
How we work with parishes and architects
We make chandeliers, sconces, candlesticks and lanterns in brass, conceived, drawn and made specially for your own church, and we also restore old fittings, including ones that came out of other workshops. We can work in stages, keeping the drawings so that step by step everything comes 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.
Byzantine chandeliers, handmade brass · Chandelier restoration · Bespoke pieces · For architects · All projects
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