St. Catherine Church, Timisoara

The Parish Church “St. Catherine of Alexandria”, known as the Castle Church Timisoara has a long and interesting history. In the crypt of this medieval church was buried, in the 13th century, King Charles Robert of Anjou's wife, Mary Catherine. The church was owned by Franciscan monks, reformers of the Sanctissimi Salvatoris Province. This old church was demolished after 1723, at which point the monks moved downtown, the current Bolyai street. The new church of St. Catherine was built in a pure Baroque style containing many worship objects from the old church of Palanca Mare. Between 1887 and 1889, the church was modified and rebuilt mostly from scratch, though this time it was adapted to the Neoclassical style, while retaining many elements of Baroque. Nowadays in this church, services are held in German, Romanian, Slovak and Hungarian. Slovak believers celebrate the Holy Mass here every Sunday.