Map

The church of Santa Croce was commissioned by the Augustinian nuns and was built on drawings by Filippo Juvarra between 1718 and 1730. The building, of small dimensions, has an elliptical plan that rises directly into the dome, whose drum is consisting of a circle of windows that amplify the light. The bell tower, built in the second half of the eighteenth century, ends with a pinnacle with shelves. After a series of events, including the first expropriation by the French revolutionary government and then the Italian government that transformed the building into a military hospital, the church was reopened to Catholic worship in 1927. Damaged by bombing during the Second World War world and restored several times, in 1999 it was given back to the Archdiocese of Turin, which in 2001 granted it to the Romanian Orthodox Church.

The Romanian immigration to Turin is recent, but it is preceded by a historical cultural, social and political presence in the wider context of the Italo-Romanian relations, founded first of all on the common Latin origin. However, until the fall of communism (1989) the emigration of the Romanians to Italy was not relevant. Since 1991, and even more since the entry of Romania into the European Union (2007), the number of Romanian migrants has progressively increased. With over 1,150,000 people living in Italy, Romanians today constitute the largest community of migrants. The first Romanian Church that followed its faithful to Turin was the Orthodox Church, starting in 1975, when the first Romanian Orthodox parish in Italy was founded in Milan. In those years the parish priest also periodically reached Turin to assist the Orthodox Romanians spiritually, until 1979 when a Romanian Orthodox parish (the second in Italy) was born in Turin, that of "Santa Parascheva", followed in 2001 by that of the " Exaltation of the Holy Cross ".

Engaged in dialogue with other Christian confessions, the Romanian Orthodox community of Turin hosts ecumenical meetings on the occasion of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Together with the Catholic Church, Protestant Churches, the Islamic Community, the Jewish Community, the Hindu Union and Buddhists, it promotes meetings on the conception of spirituality in various religious traditions as a way to peace.

The relations between the predominant faith, the Catholic faith, and the new Orthodox community are based on mutual respect. The Turin Curia has made available to the Romanian Orthodox community the Church of "Santa Croce" located in the center of Turin, consecrated to Orthodox worship on 13 October 2001 by His Eminence Iosif, Metropolitan of the Romanian Orthodox Metropolis of Western and Southern Europe. The practice of granting free loan to Orthodox communities, ecclesiastical places no longer used for Catholic worship, is a well-established procedure

Direct visit with local guides.
Virtual tour: presentation of the religious site through the video-tour
Activities in the classroom (pre and post visit)
Artistic itinerary through some information sheets on the Patriarchate of Romania.
Further information on the iconostasis.
Activity of verification of the acquired knowledge and skills