Heroes' Cross on Mount Straja

The Heroes' Cross on Mount Straja, above Lupeni, is a memorial to the 800 Romanian soldiers who fell in the autumn of 1916 in the battles of the Jiu Gorge, during the First World War. The steel cross is 18.6 m tall and stands at an altitude of 1,485 m. It was consecrated on 30 October 1996 by the abbot of Lainici Monastery, Ioachim Pârvulescu, and was built from private donations, mostly from businessman Emil Ilie Părău. The Straja hermitage (Schitul Straja) was built next to it from 1999 onwards.

It is reached from Lupeni on a paved road of about 8 km, up to the Straja resort. Since 2000, a procession similar to the Way of the Cross has been held here every year on Good Friday.

It should not be confused with the memorial to the miners killed in the methane explosion at Aurelia Mine on 27 April 1922 — the worst disaster in the Jiu Valley's mining history, which left 82 dead, 62 widows and 124 orphans, and after which King Ferdinand I came to Lupeni. Their stone monument stands in the Lupeni cemetery, where memorial services are held on the anniversary, 27 April.