Vecchia Chiesa di Maria SS di Costantinopoli

In 1605 the Franciscans came to plant the cross and on 14 September of the same year they laid the first stone, with great competition from the people and with the blessing of the Bishop of Trivento, Mons. Giulio Cesare Mariconda. The convent was founded by P. Bernardino da Asti at the request and expense of the citizens and with the intervention of the Princess of Stigliano, mistress of Agnone. The church with the altar was consecrated on 5 August 1623 by the Bishop of Trivento Girolamo Costanzo. The Convent after the last suppression of 1866, went into disrepair; the ancient church, which remained isolated, was demolished in 1925 in order to create a worthy square (the Convent and the church were located in the space of the current town house) for the war memorial and for the needs of the railway yard. The building, which is the current one, was erected next to the Vecchiarelli palace and opposite the station. On 7 June 1937, a century after the great cholera, the new church, administered by the parish of Sant’Emidio, was blessed with great solemnity by H.E. the Bishop Giannico and open to worship. On 10 September 1954 the Bishop Giannico granted the Capuchins the church of Santa Maria di Costantinopoli and on 17 October 1954 the Fathers returned to Agnone, welcomed with enthusiasm by the whole city and temporarily settled in the premises of the station of the disappeared Agnone-Pescolanciano electric railway. . On September 20, 1963, next to the temporary residence, the first stone of the new convent was laid and in February 1979 the friars began to live there. With the return of the Capuchin Fathers to Agnone the celebration of the feast in honor of the Madonna was restored. The Capuchin Friars Minor, on October 18, 1997, wrote a new page of local history, with the consecration of the new church dedicated to Santa Maria di Costantinopoli. (web)