The postcards shows the Roman Catholic Herz Jesu Kirche (Church of the Heart of Jesus) built between 1891 and 1894 on Ferdinandsplatz (Shevchenko Street). The tree lined street leading to the the main entrance is Splenygasse (vul. Popovicha). The growing number of Catholics in Chernivtsi (around 19.000 in 1900, mostly Germans and Poles) made it necessary to build a larger church than the one on Main Street. In 1894 the neo gothic church, designed by Josef Leitzner, was consecrated. Until the Second World War it served as the headquaters of the Jesuits in Romania. The Soviets turned it into the Archives of the Chernivtsi Oblast, thus destroying the interior of the building. Nowadays there are plans to transfer the archives to another, more siuitable building and return the church to the Catholic community. Helmut Kusdat
