ÉGLISE ST GAÉTAN

Rașcov is on the eastern bank of the Dniestr River in Transnistria and has a long history. The town was founded in 1402 and became an important commercial centre. It was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later of the Polish-Lithuanian Union, which explains the presence of a strong Polish community. Rașcov also had a strong Jewish community and had two synagogues. The locality became a spiritual center of Hasidic Judaism and the residence of Rabbi Jacob Joseph of Polonia. It also had a beautiful building, the Juriewicz mansion, which unfortunately was demolished. The Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity, built in 1779, and the Catholic Church of St. Gaetan (called Caietan in Romanian) remain today. The Church of St Gaetan was built in 1749 by the Polish prince Józef Lubomirski (1704-1755), but other sources attribute its construction to Józef Krzysztofowicz in 1786. The church was also used by Armenian Catholics and was consecrated in 1791 by Jakub Walerian Tumanowicz, Archbishop of Lviv. At the end of the 19th century the Catholic parish had about 1,160 faithful. The Soviet authorities closed the church in 1932 and it was reopened in 1942 during the occupation of Transnistria by Romanian troops. It was closed again in 1948 by the Soviet authorities and turned into a warehouse. It regained its function in 1990 thanks to the dynamism of Polish priests. It is remarkable for its neo-gothic architecture and its pediment with two bell towers.