The Roman Catholic Parish Church from the City


       In front of the Transilvania garrison, near the "Carmen Silva"
   High School, long ago, it used to be a triangular obelisk ending
   with a cross. It was placed where it used to be the oldest
   church from Timisoara, blessed on Saint Catherine s day, dating
   from XIV century. During the Turk occupation, the church was
   transformed into a mosque, and the half moon stood on top of it
   for 164 years instead of the cross. After 1716, was used by the
   imperial armies as storage for salt and later for gun powder. In
   1722, becoming the possession of the Franciscan monks, the
   church serves again its holy mission. In 1723, starting the
   building of the new fortress, the church and the small Palanca
   were left outside of the defense channels; it was demolished in
   1757. This is how the last building from Timisoara, as old as
   the Huniade Palace, disappeared. It is said that the queen Mary
   Catherine, the first wife of king Carol Robert of Anjou, passing
   away in Timisoara, found her eternal resting place in this
   church. The obelisk I mentioned earlier, dated from 1763, had on
   its three sides Latin inscriptions, illegible because of time
   and corrosion. In 1849, during the siege of Timisoara, the
   obelisk was damaged, its restoration being done in 1851. In
   1933, when a circular street started to be built into this zone,
   the obelisk was moved in front of the "Carmen Silva" High
   School. When other edifices started to be raised here, the
   obelisk was moved in the cemetery from Calea Lipovei, or Lipova
   s Way.

      The Franciscans, building the parish church from the City, were
   able to save some cult objects and valuable paintings from the
   old church; it is believed that the "Black Madonna" was coming
   from the old church. This is a wooden statue of the Saint Virgin
   and the baby Jesus, having the heads black, and the rest of the
   bodies wrapped in Gold weaving linen, that can be seen in the
   parish church from the City, on the Pietrosu Street. This is
   where is kept under glass the painting of the Madonna with
   child, crowned with metal crowns and also having metal hearts.
   The painting from the main altar should not be forgotten; it
   represents the Saint Catherine from Alexandria; was painted in
   1761 by Ferdinand Schiessel [26] from Timisoara; the sponsor of
   this church was a high rank employee of the public
   administration, named Ohnesorg, as it is mentioned in the
   Franciscans chronicle. It is believed Schiessel painted other
   things kept in this church until today. The beautiful baroc
   style pulpit, placed on left in the old church, placed on the
   right here, is from the Franciscans times. In 1882, the parish
   church, taken by the Franciscans, was closed because it became
   unsafe after an earthquake.  The old Jesuit church, then the
   church of the theological Seminary, served as the parish church,
   as it did many years ago.  In 1888, the Saint Catherine church
   was demolished and the today church, built on the same place,
   was blessed on November 25, 1889 by the parish priest Josef
   Brand; all the baroc art objects from the demolished church were
   saved. Besides the mentioned objects, there were also two
   funeral covers, one of them reminding one of the people that
   contributed a lot at the building of some of Timisoara s
   edifices, the hydraulics engineer Johann Theodor Kostka deceased
   in 1807 [27]. There is also a baptistery (from the XVIII
   century), originating in Belgrad, and two paintings from the
   old Jesuit church representing the Saints Aloisius and Ignatius
   from Loyola; another art object is the organ built by the
   Leopold Wegenstein from Timisoara, who won the first prize for
   this at the Budapest exposition (1896).