FRANCISCAN MONASTERY

Audio (489.22K)

The parceling of the terrain on which the citadel was to be built caused that some terrains be taken over by the Roman-Catholic community. They intuited the necessity of the existence of a church in a place where many of the inhabitants were of Austrian or Hungarian origin, all of them catholics. The future Josefin Quarter was organized according to various social and economic elements, thus appearing two nuclei. A German one in the Northern part of the terrain of the citadel and a Romanian one in the opposite part of this terrain.

The church which was built belonged to the Franciscan nuns. They came back to Sibiu. They had a convent in the mediaeval period, inside the citadel (the present day Franciscan church). The Lutheran reform led to their banishment as well as to the banishment of all other monk orders.

The inauguration of this monastery happened on the 1st of May 1864 in a festivity. In time here a catholic seminar was established by Brilinski Lajos. The parcel is bought on the edge of the citadel where one could go towards the fortification. At the basis of the fall there were secondary chanels of the river Cibin. In time this was not used anymore by the inhabitants of Sibiu. In 1895-1896 the construction of the church of this convent was completed.

After the Second World War the convent was nationalized by the communist authorities and became finally the building for two industrial high-schools, a textile one and a sanitary one and of a middle school. After the Revolution of 1989 the last one became a theoretical high-school and he changed the name into the Theoretical High-School Constantin Noica. In 2007 the building was returned to the Franciscan order.

The building is a combination between the classicist and the eclectic elements. The plan is a rectangular one consisting of six wings, two lateral wings perpendicular to the straightway, two central also perpendicular to the street, one parallel to the street and the church which continues inside the parcel towards the limit on the part of the outer descent of the citadel.