In Văleni village, located on the road that crosses the hills between the communes of Călăţele and Mănăstireni, the Franciscan monks built a fortified church in Romanesque style. In 1452, it was rebuilt in Gothic style, adding buttresses for the walls so that, in the 16th century, the massive tower was added, whose strategic function was to supervise the entire area. From the 17th century, the church will have two defensive walls and will become a Reformed Calvinist church to this day.
Its strategic role in history was very important, the church being the place of refuge for the population in the area during the numerous Tatar invasions. A memory of those times is the image of a Tartar carved on one of the defensive walls of the church. In the defensive wall of the church we also find a funerary relief from the Roman era.
The interior is the specific one of a church from Ţara Călatei: the coffered ceiling painted with various motifs from 1774, the embroideries specific to the area and two woven wheat chandeliers, a specific element of the reformed churches. These chandeliers symbolize the bread – the body of Christ and are about 60 years old. In the church there is a funerary monument of a nobleman from the region. A legend of the area claims that the tombstone would facilitate access to a tunnel that would reach 4.5 km away, in the village of Mănăstireni. The only certainty remains the discovery of a tunnel under the church, which, however, is collapsed in the area of the defense walls. In the vicinity of the church was arranged a small museum with various historical relics.
