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The Reformed Church of Huedin, registered in the List of Historic Monuments with the code CJ-II-m-A-07679, is the most impressive and most magnificent medieval place of worship in the Călata region (or Kalotaszeg in Hungarian).

The building was enclosed by an oval wall until the end of the 19th century, protected by two towers, which were demolished in 1882. Today, the church is surrounded by a low metal fence, almost on the line of the old wall. In keeping with medieval customs, the building was surrounded by a cemetery, which led to valuable funerary monuments from the 17th and 18th centuries on the ground floor of the tower.

The internal composition of the church consists of the western tower, the elongated nave and the choir, which is much taller than the nave.

The rectangular main tower is only slightly narrower than the nave, and its huge walls and small windows clearly show that it once played a defensive role. The tower can be approached through a semicircular arcade open through the south wall, with simple stone frescoes on either side.

The roof of the tower is typical of the architecture of the Călata region, with a square base covered with shingles, four wooden arches at the corners and rising from an open porch through arches, which also forms the belfry.

The nave has two southern entrances, preceded by porticoes. The interior composition of the nave is one of the most interesting aspects in the history of the church: the parts extended in a westerly direction are unusual in medieval architecture. The elegant chancel, much taller than the nave, is elongated, polygonal and typically medieval in plan. The plan shows that the width of the nave is almost the same as that of the choir (7,68 m and 7,76 m), but the axis of the choir is much further north than the axis of the nave (about 2,55 m).

The choir is accessed from the nave via the triumphal arch, which is higher than the nave. The shingle-covered choir roof follows the base of the polygonal square, with a sloping side to the west. An illustration shows the date 1891 inscribed on the east side of the roof, indicating repairs to the roof structure. It is also possible to see that the upper part of the taller windows has been bricked up (part with Gothic mouldings).

The four split-stone tower facades (the cut stones at the corners) are of course similar, but not identical. The eastern façade is almost completely covered by the nave. Remains of the pedestal profile can be seen on the north and south facades. On the north, south and west façades, the stone centre belt marking the boundary between the ground floor and the first floor is visible.

The inner floors have two narrow windows on either side. The first floor has one narrow window with round arched closure on each side, except on the east side, where there is a doorway. Based on the original defensive role of the tower, these windows are interpreted as fire openings.

On the second floor of the tower, on the south, west and north sides, there is a small window, a slightly wider triangular window with profiled stones.

On the south and north sides of the top tower, the square clock faces of the tower are visible. It should be noted that the two small square openings in the tower wall below the two dials are too small to be windows (they are labelled as ‘ventilation openings’ in the current records). Some archival depictions of the church show clearly that the original dials on both facades were lower. Thus, we assume that the holes were provided for the clock spindles, which moved the clock hands.

Because of the above-mentioned terrain, the western façade of the tower has a much deeper foundation than the northern and southern parts: this façade was also “free” during the fort’s existence, with the soil accumulating inside it and the surrounding roads being deepened at the same time.

On the southern façade of the tower is one of the main entrances to the church. This entrance is semicircular, covered with a stone frame, with a sloping edge at the arch. The windows on the upper floor are similar to those on the other facades, but here the upper triangle is replaced by a round arch.

The north façade of the tower is very similar to the south. A narrow, triangular window opens through a closed doorway. Nothing of the medieval plinth is recognisable; the plinth appears to have been completely renovated. The clock face is in a much more deteriorated state than the south, and has a planked face for this reason.

The south wall of the nave is one of the newest parts of the building, which was destroyed in the 1765 earthquake and almost completely rebuilt in 1772. There is a commemorative plaque on the south façade and an inscription on the entrance on the same façade, indicating that the construction was carried out by Ferenc Pámer (Franz Bämmer), who was also involved in the construction of the Wesselényi Castle in Zsibó or Jibou.

The eastern corner of the façade is connected to the buttress of the choir. The buttresses (which have a cantilevered roof) are actually in the quarters of the side of the façade, and the central aisle has a plaque commemorating the 18th century rebuilding.

An investigation of the masonry found that the nave wall is not connected to the choir wall and that the east end is not built of stone blocks.

The stones cut at the opposite corner indicate that the medieval wall has been preserved at its full height, but a deep crack has been discovered inside between the south and west walls of the nave, indicating different periods of construction.

The most striking features of the façade are the two wall porticoes, which are similar in volume and architecture. The west portico has semicircular openings and cornices on either side.

The porticoes are not connected to the south wall, they are later than the wall, but their date of construction is not known (they are already on Bunyitay’s 1883 drawing), so they were built sometime in the 19th century.

The south façade has four semi-circular windows, spaced apart, the two side ones directly on the axis of the porticoes, and the two central ones flanking the memorial plaque. The doors of the two porticoes are very similar, with a simple stone frame.

A relatively small plaque commemorating the reconstruction of the façade was placed in the central axis of the façade. The memorial plaque is made of stone, with a profile only on the upper part, which does not exclude the possibility that it was made from the old plinth of the nave, as it is very similar to the medieval plinths. The inscription is carved into the stone in Hungarian, the letters are painted black.

According to archaeological research, the northern wall of the nave is the oldest part of the church, under the eastern half of which the foundations of an older wall have been preserved, probably from the Romanesque prehistory of the building. The wall is divided by three massive buttresses, about a third of the way up the façade, the eastern one directly at the choir. The appearance of the buttresses (with cement slab gable roofs) and the absence of profiled stone blocks are completely alien to medieval buttresses. In the western corner of the wall, the cut corner stones remain uncut, a sure sign of the wall’s medieval origin. The plinth is also made of unworked stone and also without mouldings. The wall is broken by two semi-circular windows, similar in size to those to the south, but slightly lower.

The choir, as seen above, is a typical late medieval polygonal square supported by nine pillars. The front of the piers consists of stone blocks with a stone roof (part of the original structure) and two crowns. The choir remains alongside the profiled plinth, made of simple scallops and kyma. The south façade has four buttresses, together with the columns supporting the triumphal arch and those at the eastern corner, which now have a sloping orientation. The plinth is high and bears traces of several repairs, but the upper profile remains.

Covering the east chancel. There is a round-arched window on each of the three sides of the enclosure, the architecture of the sides being of course the same as that of the south façade of the choir. The window on the east side has a narrower and higher cornice than the other Gothic windows in the choir.

The architectural design of the north façade of the choir is identical to that of the south façade (plinth, composition of the axes of the openings, etc.), but there are also natural differences. The buttress in axis 13 is missing (the number of axes according to the current reliefs), i.e. the façade has only one window, in contrast to the central window in the southern façade. This window, with broken-arched shutter, is narrower or smaller (but with a higher sill) than the ‘normal’ chancel windows, and has no frame.

The ground floor of the tower is clad with massive, barely worked stone slabs. The space is covered by a semicircular vault on the north-south axis. The traces of the vault (shoulders and impressions) are very well preserved. Today, a wooden floor can be found above the traces of the vault. Half of the nave is opened by a Gothic-style doorway with a stone frame and a broken arch, the profile of which is formed between deep grooves.

The first floor of the tower is at the level of the medieval first floor, the floor level being the same as the threshold level of the aforementioned closed door in the west wall. The closed door is easily recognisable: it fits into a recess with an arch.

There is also a door on the second floor, this is to the west, towards the attic, and the door threshold is at floor level. This door has no frame, it is not machined, just a slot. The second floor window bays have beamed ceilings, and the unplastered interior wall of the tower shows a projecting vault.

The top of the tower rests on open rafters through wooden ‘arches’, and the three church bells are located on this level. There is also an inscription on one of the sloping beams, apparently with the name and date of a craftsman on it: BALOG 1824 28 AG. The structure of the helmet appears to be later than the structure of the cleft.

There are three bells in the tower, the oldest of which dates from 1761. The larger bell was cast in 1925 and the smaller in 1968.

The interior of the nave is of the same opulent design as the monumentality of the church (monumentalitatea). The most spectacular feature of the interior is the painted coffered ceiling, one of the largest in Transylvania, which covers the nave and the upper part of the vault of the triumphal arch towards the choir (there are 13 full coffered ceilings).

Of course, the ceiling of the nave (which consists of 8 x 25 painted coffers, but as we shall see, the south row was heavily affected by the rebuilding of the south wall) is lower than the ceiling of the choir, with the coffers having a central composition, which are repeated in diagonal lines, are dated 1705 according to the inscription, and are stylistically attributed to the work of a craftsman named Felvinczi (whose first name is unknown), who also worked to a high standard on the Calotadamos and Valcho Reformed churches. The cassettes are decorated in 8 different ways. On the 3rd and 4th cassettes of the middle row of the choir, long inscriptions in Hungarian can be read, which unfortunately do not reveal the name of the ceiling maker. Cassette 3 is inscribed in roundels. The coffered ceiling bears the marks of several later interventions. The southern row of cassettes was replaced with smaller painted cassettes at the same time as the rebuilding of the southern wall (1772) after the earthquake of 1765, and there are 26 cassettes here (making a total of 7 x 25 + 26, or 201), but it should be noted that two of the cassettes of the craftsman Felvinczi at the western end of the row remain in their original position, so the row has not been completely replaced. The two cassettes were kept in positions 2 and 3, but the orientation of the planks was different from the rest of the ceiling, so they were moved, and only one of them follows the logic of the decorative composition (which means, of course, that the southern row was changed, but these two pieces were “saved” during the works). Unfortunately, we do not know the craftsman who painted the tapestries of the south row. We know from the two inscriptions on the coffered ceiling above the west stand that the ceiling was renovated to some extent in 1942 (István Vincze) and 1963 (Ferenc D. Ambrus).

The west choir loft is made of wood and rests on six wooden pillars made of axes, with profiled domes and restrained decoration. The gallery is constructed with wooden wedges. Today the gallery has been painted with brown oil paint. Beneath the layer of paint, the painted floral and vegetable decoration and even the inscription of the year, probably 1780, can be seen in the light falling on the gallery cornice (as conservator Ferenc Mihály notes, the painted coffered ceiling of the choir was made in 1780 in the Umling workshop).

The pews in the nave are also painted brown, stylistically (the profiling of the side pews) could be the work of the Umling workshop, and the edges of the front pews in the beam also have decorative floral paintings. One can observe a bird figure on the ledge of the north row bench in a ballot box (opened by the restorer Ferenc Mihály), which has a very nice analogy on the coffered ceiling of the choir.

A special work of art is the pulpit, carved in stone  by the renowned late Renaissance sculptor Dávid Sipos (†1762) from the abandoned Reformed church in Drág (Sălaj or Szilágy county), brought back in 1969.

The two sides of the basket are inscribed, the others are decorated with flower stems carved with great skill. On the two sides with inscriptions are the coats of arms of the patrons, the Rhédey and Wesselényi families (the Wesselényi family had their estate centre in Drág). On the left side, above the inscription, is the swan coat of arms of the Rhédey family. The ancient pulpit was octagonal or hexagonal in plan, supported on an elegant, slender leg silhouette, resembling an upturned pyramid with curved sides.

Only the southern ‘column’ of the monumental triumphal arch forms the western wall of the nave. This wall is almost completely obscured by a huge plaque commemorating the fallen heroes of the First World War.