The Italian Church in Bucharest

The Italian Church "Our Blessed Savior" is a Catholic church, built between 1915-1916 in Bucharest. It was consecrated by bishop Raymond Netzhammer in 1916. The funds were donated by King Victor Emmanuel III, the Vatican, the Italian Embassy and the Italian community in Romania that in 1915 numbered about 7000 people. An Italian journalist of the time launched an appeal to his compatriots: "Italian citizens, rather than cross the ocean to America and you experience surprise that the tycoons will not integrate you and die of hunger, better come in Romania, which is a rich country and has a very welcoming people of Latin origin, as us!"

The church is located on the busiest boulevard in Bucharest, Nicolae Bălcescu, and is owned by the Italian government. Architects were Mario Stoppa and Giuseppe Furaboschi. It was built after the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazzie in Milan, built in old Lombard style. The church in was built in order to recreate the typical atmosphere of Italian churches, with Romanic and Renaissance influences. The church parsonage was built in 1924 and for a time hosted the Italian school. The campanile is 27.75 m high and is equipped with four bells. The apartment buildings surrounding the church were built in the thirties, changing the atmosphere around the church. The earthquakes in 1940, 1977 and 1986 seriously affected the Italian Church, being further consolidated and restaurated.

Photo from here.

The first parish priest, Antonio Mantica, served here by the end of 1949 when he was arrested and forced to leave Romania. The second priest, Clemente Gatti, served until March 1951 when he was also arrested, sentenced to 15 years in prison and deported in April 1952. The church was closed until 1968, when it was reopened during the visit to Romania of the Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani. It remained opened only for occasional services such as Easter, Christmas, Feast of Our Lady, etc.. The church was reopened after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. The Italian church hosts organ concertos, and Baroque music concertos.

Vladimir Ghika – prince, priest and martyr

Vladimir Ghika (or Ghica, December 25, 1873, Constantinople – May 16, 1954, Jilava), "a prince of this world who, by a higher calling, became a priest of Jesus Christ". The fifth child of Prince Jean (or Ioan) Ghika and Alexandrine Moret of Blaremberg, Vladimir Ghika was born in Constantinople on December 25, 1873, where his father was at the time ambassador of Romania. Since 1657, ten Ghika princes had reigned in Moldavia or in Wallachia, of whom the last was Vladimir's grandfather, Grigore V; his mother was descendant of King Henry IV de Bourbon of France.


He received the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation in the Orthodox Church, of which his parents were members. After concluding brilliant studies in Paris, Vladimir was stricken in 1895 with angina pectoris, and he had to give up on a career as a diplomat. In 1898, he joined his brother Demeter, named the Romanian ambassador to Italy. He understood that Christian unity is not possible unless it is under the authority of the Pope, the Successor of Saint Peter. On April 13, 1902, he was officially received into the Catholic Church by Cardinal Mathieu, the Archbishop of Toulouse, who was passing through Rome. However, the Romanian newspapers condemned this step, accusing Prince Ghika of treason. Later, to an Orthodox monk who asked him why he became Catholic, he simply answered, "To be more Orthodox"! In Salonic in 1904, Vladimir met Sister Pucci, an outstanding Sister of Saint Vincent de Paul of Italian birth, who brought him into her apostolate among the sick and dying. Soon, out of his personal wealth, he founded a dispensary in Bucharest, "Bethleem Mariae", run by the "Daughters of Charity", of whom Sister Pucci would be the first superior. In 1913, Prince Ghika, with Sister Pucci, organized "Saint Vincent Hospital", a lazaretto for cholera victims. He had been involved in Romania’s social, political and diplomatic life during World War I, acting for the country’s reunification, as a delegate of the Romanian National Council to Paris, Rome and the Vatican.


After the First World War, Vladimir settled in Paris, where his brother had been named Romanian ambassador. After 1923, when he became a priest, (ordained a priest by the Archbishop of Paris on October 7, 1923), Vladimir Ghika received the privilege of celebrating according to the two rites, Latin and Byzantine. He was sent by the Catholic Church to Sydney, Budapest, Dublin and Buenos-Aires, to attend international Eucharistic congresses. He carried out apostolic missions in Japan, China and Ceylon. He used to carry out blessings with a thorn from Jesus Christ’s crown, and performed a number of miracles, including healing certain people and facilitating the birth of Japan’s crown prince. Pope Pius XI described jokingly as, “the great apostolic vagabond of the 20th century”. In the meantime, he had devoted himself to a new project: living as a missionary in the most deprived Parisian suburb, where the "absence of God" was the most tragic. In 1927, he had found a piece of land in Villejuif, in a shantytown populated by ragpickers. In 1931, Pius XI gave Father Ghika the title of Protonotary Apostolic; the humble priest became, in spite of himself, Monsignor Ghika. He pursued an apostolate which led him as far away as Japan and Argentina, according to the call of Divine Providence. In September 1939, he obtained authorization from the Archbishop of Paris to move to Romania. In Bucharest, throughout the Second World War, he carried out a tireless ministry for the refugees, the sick, the prisoners, the victims of bombings. Unable to remedy all the sufferings, he strove to help others understand that "suffering is, for the Christian, above all a visit from God, a sure visit".


The Soviet army entered Romania in August 1944 and, little by little, a Communist regime was established. Vladimir Ghika was arrested in 1952, and had been accused of spying for the Vatican. Over the course of more than eighty nighttime interrogations, he was slapped, beaten and tortured to the point of temporary loss of hearing and sight. After a shame trial, he was condemned in 1953 to three years of imprisonment. He died in a communist prison in Romania in 1954, following the tortures he had been subjected to by the Securitate. Vladimir Ghika was proposed for beatification by the Bucharest Catholic Diocese and process of beatification is in progress.

Bucharest Bărăţia

Bărăţia is the first Roman Catholic church in Bucharest. It is located in central Bucharest, on the I. C. Brătianu Blvd, next to Piaţa Unirii. Its name, used in antiquated Romanian for several Catholic churches, is derived from a Hungarian word of Slavic origin, barát, meaning "brother" or "monk".


The history of the church can be traced back to 1314, when Franciscan monks built a wooden church near the early settlements at the location of present-day Bucharest, mainly for Italian merchants traveling to the Byzantine Empire. Bucharest was founded in 1459, and the wooden church rebuilt several times. In 1629-1633, a new stone church was constructed by Franciscan monks from the Province of Bulgaria. In 1716, the Wallachian Prince Ştefan Cantacuzino promised that he would repair it, but he had to abdicate that same year. Leopold I donated 1,500 golden ducats for the repairs, to which Prince Nicholas Mavrocordatos contributed a further 280 ducats, and the work was finished in 1741.


The church burnt down during the 1847 Bucharest fire and its reconstruction, which ended in 1848, was financed by the Imperial House of Vienna, which donated 4,000 guilders. The big bell was cast in 1855, being financed by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. During the Communist era, many buildings of the parish were demolished or confiscated by the State. The church underwent a major renovation in 1954.