Reformed Church of Turda

Turda has a significant concentration of historic churches reflecting its role as a multi-confessional town under Transylvanian autonomy. The Reformed (Calvinist) church is one of the most important, a late Gothic building with later modifications that has been in continuous use since the Reformation period. The church interior retains its characteristic Reformed simplicity — no painted altarpieces, no statues, just clean whitewashed walls, wooden galleries, and carved pulpit.

The church is most easily appreciated in the context of Turda's role in the 1568 Edict of Turda, which established religious tolerance in Transylvania generations before it was achieved anywhere else in Europe. A visit to the church can be combined with the main square nearby, which is a short walk away.

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A story
The 1568 Edict of Turda — sometimes called the Edict of Torda — was issued in this city and is considered one of the earliest laws of religious tolerance in the world. It declared that "each person should maintain whatever religion he has chosen, with new customs introduced neither by our authority nor those of others." This was a remarkable declaration for 16th-century Europe, and it applied in the Transylvanian principality at a time when religious wars were tearing apart the rest of the continent.