The Sibiu area shelters archelogical findings from Late Stone Age, Early Bronze and Iron Age to pre-Roman settlements inhabited by Dacian tribes. Traces of a Roman settlement named Cedonia puts Sibiu on the map of the Dacian Province of the Roman Empire.

The colonists, named in the documents “teutonici”, “flandres” or “saxones” established around 1150 a settlement called “Villa Hermanni” – Hermannsdorf, later Hermannstadt, mentioned first in a document in 1191 by Pope Celestin III. Hermannsdorf evolved towards urban life and got the rank of city – civitas in 1366. The German colonists’ settlements united in seven Chairs, which towards the end of the 15th century formed a coherent administrative system called The University of Saxon Nation whilst Sibiu/Hermannstadt became the capital city of the Saxons. The city grew in importance as it developed a prosperous trade with Hungary, Poland and the southern province of Wallachia. The craftsmen in Hermannstadt also bartered goods - mainly clothes and tools - with the Romanian population. Production and trade developed and flourished, due to the activity of the guilds.

Their first written regulations (1367) mentioned 19 guilds, with 25 trades. Their number constantly grew. The flourishing period was shadowed by the Turkish danger as invasions followed one after the other beginning with 1394, 1432, 1437 and 1438, when the town successfully resisted against a siege led by the sultan Murad th 2nd.

In 1493 the city’s army reinforced by Romanian troops and led by Georg Hecht ambushed and defeated the Turkish army on their way back after a plunder campaign. The city extended and built concentric fortification walls, towers and bastions. After the Battle of Mohacs in 1526 Turks conquer the capital Buda in 1541 and put Hungary and Transylvania under their authority.
The Humanistic ideas and the Renaissance greatly changed the aspect of the town and its life, prompting the Saxons in 1543 to adopt the religious reformation, converting „in corpore“ to the Lutheran confession. At the end of the 16th century, at the end of some victorious campaigns, the Romanian prince Michael The Brave defeated the Hungarian army in 1599 under the walls of the town and united Transylvania with the province of Wallachia.

As the Turks were defeated by the Austrians at the end of the 17th century, Transylvania became a great principality of the Austrian Empire. The administrative power in the province was exercised between 1692-1790 from Sibiu/Hermannstadt. Although the Saxons preserved their Lutheran confession, the Catholic church embarked on a counter-Reform campaign, promoting the Baroque style with an visible impact on the town‘s architecture. At the end of the 18th century the governor of Transylvania Samuel von Brukenthal had gathered an impressive library and rich art collections, mentioned since 1773 in the Almanach von Wien. The collections were opened to the public in 1817 and became later the core of Brukenthal Museum. In the 18th century the town extended over the precinct walls, forming the district Josephin, Terezian and Lazaret. Since beginning with the 1541 only Saxons could have properties inside the walls of the town, the Romanian population settled in these districts.
The reign of Joseph the 2nd, marked by Enlightenment reforms gave in 1781 other ethnic groups the right to live in the town alonside with the Saxons. As a result, the Romanian orthodox bishop Vasile Moga and his church settled in the town. The Romanian population became more and more present in the life of the town, which become around the middle of the 19th century the spiritual centre of the Romanians’ struggle for political emancipation.

The Austrian–Hungarian dualism strippedd the privileges and the territorial administrative autonomy of the Saxons.
Transylvania was annexed to Hungary since 1867. The city witnessed once again an economical flourishing. Between 1840 and 1918, a number of 33 industrial enterprises were active in Sibiu/Hermannstadt. The electric plant was founded in 1896 and the electric tramway appeared in town in 1905.

At the end of World War I, in 1918 the Romanian population decides to unite Transylvania with the Kingdom of Romania, followed in 1919 by the Saxons’ Assembly voted for joining in.
Sibiu became the seat of the provisional government until the unification was completed.
Although the number of Romanians in town substantially raised, Sibiu/Hermannstadt remained the main centre of the German culture and education in Romania and witnessed a vivid cultural life of all the ethnic groups.
Sibiu did not suffer distructions during WW II but, after the war, the new communist authorities backed by Moskau began to nationalise the factories and the land while launching waves of pollitical trials and arrests against all oponents. For the population of Sibiu a long suffering began. The communist authorities considered Saxons guilty in corpore for collaborating with the German Reich and many of them were deported in the Soviet Union for forced labour.

Prompted by the dictatorial regime and economic hardships Saxons began in the 70’s to emmigrate to West Germany. The massive emmigration continued even after the Revolution in 1989, leaving in Sibiu only 2.200 Saxons.
As economic hardships and oppression grew during the 80’s, the population of Sibiu was fast to rebel against the communist regime in December 1989, when 91 persons lost their life in the armed clashes.
During the 90’s the city restored its democratical institutions and faces now the task of renewing the infrastructure and raising the living standard of its inhabitants.

You can find more information about this church and many others on this CD dedicated to the fortified churches in Transylvania.