DEMSUS. — A village in Transylvania where the oldest church in present-day Romania stands; today it is Romanian-Catholic. Built with stones, altars, and low-reliefs taken from nearby Roman ruins, in the 19th century it was believed to be a mausoleum or an ancient pagan temple. Iorga maintained that it was a Byzantine church, dating, in his view, to the 15th–16th centuries. The building contains only Byzantine elements, yet it is constructed in a local style. It may date to the 13th century; indeed, according to Prof. Vătăşianu of the Romanian Academy in Rome (1946), it would belong to the late 12th century, owing to features of 10th-century Dalmatian origin found within II.
BIBL.: C. Petranu, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Siebenbürger Rumänen, in Mélanges d'histoire générale, ed. C. Marinescu, Cluj 1927, pp. 177, 188. Federico Tailliez