| GPS | (47.952278137207; 26.065263748169) |
| district | Suceava |
| region | Siret |
| locality | Siret |
| address | |
| category | Religious attractions |
| year | 1824 |
| ethnic | Germans, Polish |
This is a Roman Catholic church built between the years 1816 and 1824 in the town of Siret, situated on str. castanilor no. 7. Upon the request of the believers in Bukovina, by the emperor decree no. 16866 from November 11th, 1811 issued in Wien by the emperor Francis I (1792-1835), five parishes were established: Siret, Suceava, Sadagura, Istensegíts (Ţibeni) and Andrásfalva (Măneuţi). On this particular occasion, the Diaconate of Siret was promoted to the rank of parish, the first parish priest being Joseph von Nitzki. In 1816, the priest Mathias Fetzky started the works to build a church, which was completed in 1824, while the priest Josef Rybitczka was leading the parish. This place of worship was made out of stone and brick, in the Romanic style, shaped like a vessel. The church is 33m length, 12,5 width and the tower is 35m high. It was sanctified on September 8th, 1826 by the archbishop of Lemberg, whose patron day is ”The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary” .The walls inside the church were painted in 1936. Inside there are statueettes carved in wood by the Austrian artist Ferdinand Stuflesser (1855-1926) of the South Tyrol, as well as two oil icons painted at the end of the XIXth century. During the times of the parish priest Joannes Wachowski (1831-1872) the parish cemetery was made (1867-1868) and at the outskirts of the city, on Horațiul Hill was built the chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary (1868), who saved the people of Siret of the cholera epidemic. In the XIXth century, the parish believers were mostly Germans and, subsequently, Polish believers came and settled here. Until the unification of Bukovina with Romania (1918), Siret parish had 17 priests, of which 9 were Polish, six German, one Czech and one Hungarian. Once Bukovina became part of Romania, the new relationships between the Romanian Kingdom and the Vatican were established. In order to manage the new territories united with Romania, the Vatican appointed Józef Bilczewski, archbishop of Lov (1900-1923), as apostolic administrator of Bukovina. In 1921, the Pope's state established a general vicariate in Bukovina (with the headquarters in Chernivtsi), which was led by the priest Josef Schmidt. Since he died soon, Mons. Clemens Swoboda (the parish priest of Rădăuți) was appointed on June 9, 1921, as Chernivti parish priest and General Vicare of Bukovina. In the inter-war period, the number of German and Polish Catholics dropped after they left for Germany, Austria and Poland. The communist regime was a hard period for the Catholic Church of Romania. After the war, the German believers started to immigrate to Germany. The parishes' heritage was almost totally nationalised. After the Germans emigration, the Roman-Catholic community of Siret became a mixed community, including Polish, German, Romanian and Ukrainian ethnics. After 1989, the Roman-Catholic community of Siret started to develop. Between the years 1993 and 2000 the church underwent general repair works. On November 13, 2011 the Roman-catholic community of Siret celebrated the 20th anniversary of ”Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary” parish (1811-2011).
