Its particular setting drew the attention of the "Mihai Eminescu Trust", a foundation under the patronage of HRH Prince Charles himself, that refurbished the church and several houses from the village, restoring some of their original character.

The isolation of the village, as well as the lack of alternative employment when agriculture collapsed, triggered a peculiar initiative at the end of the 1990s. A group of resident Germans created a brand called 'Echte Viscri Socken aus Schafwolle' ("Genuine Viscri Sheep's Wool Socks"). 

The church

The name of the settlement, derived from the Romanian pronunciation of the Saxon word for white church - Deutschweisskirch - appears in official documents only several centuries after its founding. It is first mentioned in a 16th century accounts book of the bishopric of the county of Rupea. A century later, it is listed as a free commune with 51 households, three shepherds, a teacher and two paupers. It appears that before the Saxons (alii Flandrenses) arrived here as colonists sent by King Geza II in 1162, a Szekler community (Secui) lived here. They had built a rectangular chapel with a round altar in white-greenish limestone. The coins and the head-band earrings found in the graves inside and outside the chapel date from around 1100-1120. The old chapel was used for a while by the Saxon community that slightly modified it by adding a wooden loft on the western side. Later, it was integrated in the single-nave Romanesque church. Two Romanesque capitals preserved in the choir, one of which is used as a font, date from the same period.

The fortification

As early as the 13th, the church was surrounded with an oval mantle wall out of stone collected from the plains and from the river. Only the south, east and north-east segments have been preserved.

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