The Roman-Catholic Cathedral of Divine Providence (1840)
The Roman Catholic community in Chisinau, composed almost exclusively of Polish people, was formed in the late 1830s. Ten years later, with their own financial contributions, the community builts a holy place, in 1840.
The church project was approved in St Petersburg. The architect and sculptor Joseph I. Charlemand played an important role for the design.
The architecture of this cathedral was designed in the spirit of late neoclassicism, influenced by Italian Renaissance architecture.
On 30 September 1964, the church was handed over to the School No 56 and converted into an assembly hall. Later, the church also housed a recording studio and a warehouse of the film studio “Moldova Film”. In 1988, the church was converted into a poetic theatre.
Only at the end of 1989, after numerous appeals to the central authorities of the USSR, the Red Cross and the ONU, was the church returned to the parish and the faithful.
Nowadays, there is an estimated number of 20,000 Catholics in Moldova.