The postcard shows the Residence of the Greek-Orthodox Bishop in Chernivtsi. From 1873 on he was the Metropolitan of the Bukowina and Dalmatia, being the head of all Orthodox believers in the Habsburg Empire. The impressive structure was buit between 1864 and 1882 and replaced an older residence from the 1780s. It sits on a hill overlooking the city. In the 1880s the top of this hill behind the gardens of the Residence got the name Habsburgshöhe. The driving force behind the project was Bishop Eugen Hacman, the architect was Josef Hlavka from Bohemia. The necessary amount of 1,75 million Guilders came mainly from the funds of the Greek-Orthodox Church of the Bukowina (Griechisch Orientalischer Religionsfonds). The ensemble in moorish-byzantine style consists of three wings which surround an inner courtyard: the central Bishop’s residence, the Seminary with a church to the left and the monastery on the right side. Behind the Bishop’s residence there is a large private garden. The postcard shows the entire building: the gate to the inner courtyard, the central buildung, the seminary building with the seminary church on the left side and the monastery on the right side. The Residence also housed the greek-orthodox seminary, founded in 1828, and the theological faculty ot the university of Chernivtsi which attracted students from all over the Empire, south-eastern Europe and the Middle East. After the second Wold War, the orthodox seminary was closed, the Bishop moved to Romania and the building, which was severely damaged by fire during the war, was handed over to the University of Chernivtsi, as main building of which it serves until today. The postcards also shows the street leading to the Residence from the city center. Originally named Bischofsgasse, it was called Residenzgasse later, and University Street nowadays. The small church in the front is the Lutheran Protestant Church, built in 1849 by the architect J.Engels. Ethnically most Protestant in Chernivtsi were colonists from German lands who settled in the Bukowina after the annexation by Austria in 1775. The first protestant Pastor arrived in Chernivtsi in 1795. Before the first World War around 5000 German Lutherans were living in Chernivtsi, mainly in the district of Rosch. After the German – Soviet agreement in 1940 around 90.000 Germans were ‘repatriated’ from the Bukowina to Germany, putting an end to the history of the German minority in the Bukowina. The church was used as an archives by the Soviets, the tower does not exist any more. Helmut Kusdat
Tags:
Czernowitz, Orthodox and Protestant Churches, Bishop’s Residence, Universities
