Ieud has two wooden churches and is the place to come if you want to understand what makes Maramureș church architecture so remarkable. The older of the two — the Church of the Nativity, sometimes called the Hill Church — dates from the 17th century and is thought to be the oldest surviving wooden church in Romania. It stands on a rise above the village surrounded by old trees, its shingle roof and soaring spire blackened with age.
The construction uses massive oak beams joined with wooden pegs, not nails — a technique that has kept the building standing through centuries of Carpathian winters. Inside, the walls are covered with 18th-century paintings: Christ in Majesty above the altar, scenes from the life of the Virgin, saints crowded into every available surface in the deep ochres and blues characteristic of the Maramureș school. The carved wooden chandelier hanging from the ceiling is a masterpiece of local craft.
The church is a UNESCO World Heritage site as part of the group of eight wooden churches of Maramureș. A custodian from the village usually holds the key; ask at the houses nearby if the church is locked. The village of Ieud itself, in the Iza valley, repays an hour of wandering: the houses with their tall carved gates, the haystacks in the fields above, and the almost total absence of anything built after 1970 give a strong impression of what rural life in the Carpathians has looked like for generations.