SAINT ELISABETH CHURCH

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The Saint Elisabeth Church and the catholic orphanage built outside the medieval stronghold are the nucleus which led to the appearance of the first district outside the walls, Terezian. The terrain was bought by the Empress Maria Theresa. She offered it to the Austrian military and public clerks who settled in Sibiu in the 18th century. It is the first parish outside the walls belonging to the Roman Catholic rite. The name is carefully chosen since in the history of Sibiu there is also another parish Saint Elisabeth inside the walls in the Lower Town on one of the main access streets of the citadel which led to the Elisabeth Gate, and that was built by the Franciscan brothers.

The initiator of these works, the Jesuit monk Johann Theofil Delphini was helped in this action by the Empress Maria Theresa. Yearly between thirty and seventy Roman Catholic children of Szekel and Hungarian descent, all of them students of the Jesuit college, the future Roman Catholic high-school (today High-School „Gheorghe Lazăr”). In time orphans of all confessions were brought here.

Delphini hired for the constructions of the buildings the architect Leopold Grossmann. The The consecration took place on the 1st of September 1781 after 14 years since the works began. The inauguration was performed by the Bishop of Transylvania, Ignatius Balthanyi.

The central bay has a frame which in fact presents a hollow space for access to the ground floor. In this there is an inscription which can be translated by E. M. T. (ECCLESIA AD B. V. MARIAM S. ELISABETH Visitatem E/M 1767 – the Church Visit of Mary at the Saint Elisabeth 1767) and a commemorative plate. The interior is that of a hall church with two lateral apsides. At the first floor there are “zopf” style galleries as a corridor which linked the church and the orphanage. The organ is situated in a tribune opposite the altar. It is made at the beginning at the 20th century. The lateral windows belong also to the 20th century.

The furniture consists of paintings and of the baptism stone (D. O. M. Joaneus Pesamosea) of 1843 and the brass basin offered by Jakobus Drescher in 1817. The pictures belong to the altars which are three in number. The choir has the altar of Virgin Mary with a picture of her treading on the serpent. This one is made of marble, the rest being made of wood. The second one is that of the Saint Francis of Assisi (SIGNASTISERRUUMTUM FRANCISCUM SIGNISRE DEMPTIONIS), presented in a stigmatized way. The third one belongs to the Saint Teresa of Avila with the Baby Jesus. These three paintings are made on special command by the Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna.