The Old Saint Nicholas Church (Biserica Sfântul Nicolae Vechi) is an Eastern Orthodox church in the historic peninsula of Constanța, originally built for the city’s Bulgarian Orthodox community.
The congregation received permission to build the church in 1898 after several years of efforts led by community leader Ivanciu Hagi Stoian. Construction continued for almost a decade, and the church was consecrated in 1907. Built on a traditional cross-shaped plan, it has a central dome rising to about 17 meters and originally contained interior paintings by Ioanid Bătrânul, together with inscriptions in Bulgarian and Church Slavonic.
After the population exchange between Romania and Bulgaria in 1940, the building passed to the Romanian Orthodox Church and was dedicated to Saint Nicholas. The name Old Saint Nicholas later distinguished it from the second Saint Nicholas parish established in the Coiciu neighborhood in 1925 as Saint Nicholas II, where the present church was completed in 1958. The interior of the older church was subsequently repainted by Ion Musceleanu, who also replaced the earlier inscriptions with Romanian ones.
When the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul was badly damaged during a Soviet air raid in August 1941, Saint Nicholas temporarily took over its role as Constanța’s episcopal cathedral. It continued serving the Romanian Orthodox community until the 1960s, when another major change followed the demolition of the city’s Lutheran church.
In 1963, the evangelical Lutheran community was given use of Saint Nicholas and adapted the building for its own services. The iconostasis was removed and much of the Orthodox wall painting was covered or lost during this period. The church remained in Lutheran use for more than two decades before being returned to the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1987 in poor condition. Restoration followed, including further work on the frescoes in 1998.
