Degradati on of Romanian Cultural Heritage in Surrounding Environment

The oldest monumental buildings preserved in the Carpatho-Danubian-Pontic region are churches. For centuries they were the most representative creations of ecclesiastic and monumental architecture. More specifically, they have always represented typical orthodox churches since Romanians are the only Latin nation of orthodox religion, while all the other peoples of Latin origin are catholic. Erected with stone and brick masonry, these Eastern Churches of Balkan-Byzantine style were always an evidence of the level of technical knowledge, cultural receptivity and artistic refinement reached during their époques. As a rule, they followed the Byzantine pattern based on the standard scheme of the Greek Church, the straight cross inscribed in a rectangle and the dome supported on pendentives or on piers. However, they are creatively adapted to the regional traditions of the secular architecture. These Orthodox Churches also reflect the foreign influences on the autochthonous art of building. The paper also presents old and new methods for repairing three-lobed churches made of stone and brick masonry. The innovation consists in reinforcing, coating or confining masonry structural members with the aid of polymer grids of high density and strength. The results obtained by static and dynamic tests on reduced and full scale models show that the method is reliable and worth to be applied. 2