The wooden church of the Holy Archangels in Hirișeni village, Telenești district

Due to the media in the Republic of Moldova, the wooden church Assumption of the Virgin Mary within the Village Museum in Chișinău, a branch of the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History, has become the most promoted church over the last ten years. Rightfully so, the tall Maramureș-style bell tower, in an unusual symbiosis with the Moldovan nave, resembles a medieval ship sailing through the sea of greenery in the Valea Crucii park. This idyllic image, akin to an oasis located in the middle of the industrial desert of Chișinău, has a powerful impact on any visitor, transporting him into the world of childhood fairy tales. Regrettably, we must mention that due to the lack of in-depth scientific studies on the history of this church, the media is promoting a fabricated story. This fictitious story has recently been contested in the article “The Church in the village of Palanca”, which demonstrates, based on archival documents, that the old wooden church from the Hîrjauca monastery was actually transferred in 1820 to the monastic village of Palanca (Călărași) and not to the village of Hirișeni. Ignoring the erroneous version of the church’s provenance story in the Village Museum, we propose to focus on documentary research, reconstructing, the avatar of this church step by step.