Founded by Anastasia Racoviță Costachi and her niece, Maria Rosetti, the church was completed in 1786 by Nastasia’s son-in-law, Iordache Ruset.
The inscription moulded in bronze on the church bell, in Cyrillic slove, has the following content:”This bell was made by Mrs Kokona Nastasiea Racoviță, the Visternice from Kălugăra Moruzi Voevod let 7285-1788“.
Over time, the monument was repaired in 1868 by D. Cracti and parishioners. Twenty years later, the nobleman Emil Brăescu repaired it at his own expense, and in 1902, with the help of priest G. Comanescu to repair it again. In 1936, the parish owned 12 hectares of agricultural land and another 2 hectares comprising the churchyard and the two cemeteries. Also in 1936, the church was declared Historical Monument, a status it still holds today.
Another repair was carried out after the earthquake in 1940, and in 1996 the interior painting was redone by the painter Jan Zărnescu, his wife and son.
The church is an architectural hybrid: a three-lobed church with relatively small, polygonal apses on the outside and a strongly recessed porch, above which rises a massive bell-tower (characteristic of churches in the Bacau area, influenced by the architecture of Catholic churches). The exterior is plastered, painted grey, sober, without decorations. It is only in the upper register that a series of painted medallions in the shape of a rhomboid give the church a slightly strange, unusual air. The roof is of galvanised sheet metal, and in the tower the sheet metal is worked in scales, the roof being bulbar. The windows are semicircular.
The entrance is on the north side of the porch, above the door there is a niche with a curved end, with a painted icon of the patron saint: St Nicholas. The interior is of the hall type, with no separation between the nave and the pronaos (only a double archway, which is marked by a double arch that unloads onto two strong pilasters), with a cafas on the west side and a wooden catapet.
The church has a stone masonry plinth, which takes up the rather large unevenness of the terrain. This slope could have caused possible slippage on the east and north sides, which led to the buttresses in 1913. The vaulting system is wooden.
(Source: “PUG and RLU update, Măgura commune, general historical study, architect Doina Petrescu)
