The first brick church on Ruska Street
The Greek Catholic Church of St. Thaddeus became one of the first brick buildings on Ruska Street. The temple was built in 1820-1821. The founder of this shrine was a wealthy Bukovynian boyar Thaddeus von Turkul, who donated a large plot of land for the construction of the church and donated a lot of money to the holy cause.
On June 10, 1821, the church was completed and consecrated under the title of St. Thaddeus, the heavenly patron of the church's founder. The church was built in the Empire style, typical of European religious architecture of the time. The new shrine in Chernivtsi then accommodated up to half a thousand parishioners. An iconostasis and two altars were ordered from Italy for the interior decoration of the church. At the same time, the church was presented with a miraculous icon of the Mother of God, which was printed and framed with gold by Krakow masters.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, when the number of members of the Greek Catholic Church grew to 12,000 and the church could no longer accommodate all parishioners, there was a need to build a new church. The problem was solved during the Romanian period - the expansion of the existing building. The building was rebuilt according to the plan of art critic Volodymyr Zalozetsky, while completely preserving the foundation. The old part of the church was complemented by a building in the style of modernized Ukrainian Baroque. After consecration, it was named " the Greek Catholic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary ". At the same time, a new carved iconostasis was ordered, which became the decoration of the shrine. The vicissitudes of the Soviet era did not pass this shrine. In 1961 the church was closed and the building was turned into an industrial warehouse. However, parishioners were able to move the iconostasis and altars to the Church of St. Nicholas. In 1991, the cathedral was reopened and restoration work began, and the iconostasis and altars returned to their place in the Greek Catholic Church.
