Armenian Monuments of the City of Chernivtsi

The city of Chernivtsi is the administrative centre of the region of the same name. It is located in Ukraine, on the banks of the Prut River.
Armenians settled in Chernivtsi in the second half of the 15th century. In the late 19th century and early decades of the 20th century, the Armenian population of the city increased significantly. According to statistics from1909, 950 Armenians lived in Chernivtsi.
They were mainly engaged in trade, crafts, as well as in the production and sale of agricultural products.
Armenian Historical and Cultural Monuments
1.According to the testimony of Minas Bzhshkyants, one of the Mkhitarist Fathers, two Armenian churches operated in the city until the fire of 1740. After the fire, the Armenians used the right altar of the Polish church for religious rites. It was called the Church of Saint Grigor the Illuminator (Bzhshkyants, p. 317).
2. In 1879, an Armenian school was founded in Chernivtsi, mainly for orphans. It educated students from Galicia, Bessarabia, and various settlements of Bukovina (Divan, p. 227).
The surviving Armenian church in Chernivtsi is the Church of Saints Petros (Peter) and Poghos (Paul), also known as the Saint Grigor the Illuminator. It was built as an Armenian Catholic Church between 1870 and 1875 on the former Armenian Street, now Pushkin Street. The church was designed by Polish architect Josef Hlavka.
It was built of red fired brick and is a domed, three-nave, three-altar basilica. Fragments of mural paintings have been preserved inside.
The church operated until the 1940s, after which it was converted into a warehouse. In the late 1980s, the building was converted into an organ music hall. The organ is installed above the main altar, and the left altar currently belongs to the Ukrainian Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
In the 1970s, the Armenian church in Chernivtsi was visited by epigraphist Grigor Grigoryan. In the seventh volume of the collection Corpus of Armenian Inscriptions (Divan), he published the inscriptions discovered in this church.

References
1. Father Minas Bzhshkyants, Travel to Poland, Venice, St. Lazarus Island, 1830.
2. Corpus of Armenian Inscriptions (Divan), Issue VII: Ukraine, Moldova, compiled by Grigor Grigoryan, Yerevan, NAS RA, 1996.
3. Sahak Vardanyan, Armenian Monuments of Western Ukraine, RAA (Research on Armenian Architecture), Vardzk magazine, No. 9, 2013, pp. 58-59.
Photos: http://ru.hayazg.info/Армянская_Церковь_(Черновцы._Украина)