Cluj-Napoca (Hungarian Kolozsvár; German Klausenburg), city in central Romania, on the Someşul Mic River. Geographically, it is roughly equally distant from Bucharest (323 km / 201 mi), Budapest (354 km / 220 mi) and Belgrade (327 km / 203 mi). Formerly called Cluj, the city is the capital of Cluj County. It is an episcopal see for the Eastern Orthodox, Uniate, and Reformed churches. Industries in the city include textile and paper mills, sugar refineries, breweries and distilleries, and earthenware, soap, and candle factories. Among the principal buildings of Cluj-Napoca are the Church of Saint Michael, a Gothic structure erected between 1396 and 1432; the house (now an ethnographical museum) in which Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, was born in 1440; a Reformed church, constructed in 1486; the Batthanyi Palace, residence of the former princes of Transylvania; and the Babeş-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, founded in 1919. Cluj-Napoca has a large ethnic Hungarian population, and relations between the Hungarians and Romanians have been strained.

Historians believe that Cluj-Napoca was built on the site of the ancient Roman settlement of Napoca. Saxons (Germans) settled there in ad1178 and dominated the city until the 16th century. Becoming Lutherans during the Reformation, they had to leave the city following the establishment of the Uniate church during the Counter Reformation. Then the population was predominantly Magyar. In later centuries, the city was the seat of government for Transylvania as crownland of Austria and as a province of Austria-Hungary. In 1918 it became a Romanian city when Transylvania united with Romania. In 1940, during World War II, northern Transylvania, including Cluj-Napoca, was ceded to Hungary, but it was recovered by Romania in 1945 at the end of the war.

St. Michael’s Cathedral is one of the oldest and most appreciated Transylvanian monuments of gothic architecture. It stands majestically in the very heart of the town and was built between 1350 and 1487, probably immediately after the settlement had officially become a town, in 1316.

The altar is the oldest part of nowadays’ building, dating back to 1390 and measuring 24 meters. The new-gothic style tower (1837-1859) is the last built. The latter measures 80 m, together with the 4-meter high cross. The nave of the cathedral is 50 meters long and the walls - 10 meters high. The inside painting of the church is lost, however the restorations of the church revealed some very old and artful frescoes, dating from the XIV-XVth century. They seem to have been destroyed in the period when it belonged to the Protestants, as they are known for their preference for bare walls. Yet the Sleunig chapel under the tower hosts a XVth century beautiful fresco, “Golgotha”. Priest Biro Janos redecorated the church. The pulpit became baroque, with golden adornments, sculptures and bas-reliefs and the statue of archangel Michael on the top of the pulpit crown.

The exterior walls of the cathedral bear the traces of mediaeval graffiti. The decorations of the main gate date back to 1419 and contain three coat-of-arms, belonging to the reign of king Zsigmond: the coat of the Roman-German Empire, the Hungarian one in the right, and the Czech one in the left. The church is well preserved, as it was professionally restored between 1956-1963.

The chapel under the tower also hosts a crucifix, the art of wok of Fadrusz Janos, the sculptor of the statue of Matei Corvin, the statue flanking the cathedral.