5 Lei Church of Ieud Deal - Pattern

The Church of Ieud Deal in Maramureș is one of the oldest wooden churches in Romania, with dendrochronological dating placing its construction as early as 1364. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 as part of the wooden churches of Maramureș group — the likely impetus for this commemorative pattern. That it remained a pattern rather than reaching circulation is unsurprising; aluminium 5 Lei pieces of this diameter were expensive to produce relative to face value, and the National Bank issued numerous rejected pattern types throughout the mid-2000s commemorative program.