Chiesa di Maria Regina Mundi

Dedicated to Mary as Queen of the World, this parish rose with the Crociera quarter in 1961, worshipping for three decades in a simple hall before its church was finally consecrated in 1994. It is one of Nichelino’s five parishes.

Why it matters

The Chiesa di Maria Regina Mundi carries the memory of Nichelino's mid-century building booms, when new districts such as the Crociera filled with workers commuting into Turin's factories and the archdiocese had to found parishes ahead of any buildings. Established in 1961 by Cardinal Maurilio Fossati, the community spent thirty-two years celebrating in a provisional hall-church before seeing a permanent home. The church, opened in 1993 and consecrated in 1994, spans three decades of urban history in one parish.

What to notice

The parish's defining episode is architectural absence: for a generation the community had no real church at all, worshipping in a salone-chiesa, a simple hall that served from 1961 until 1993. The permanent church on via Nostra Signora di Lourdes finally gathered that history into a single building; its consecration by Cardinal Giovanni Saldarini in January 1994, during a pastoral visit, closed a thirty-year wait, and the parish marked thirty years from that consecration at its 2024 patronal festival. Look at how the church, the oratory and the kindergarten form one ensemble on the same block — the layout of a 1960s parish, where catechism, play and liturgy were planned together. The dedication, Mary as Regina Mundi or Queen of the World, belongs to post-war Catholic imagery and gives the parish its title.

Context and history

In 1961, as the Crociera quarter expanded, Cardinal Maurilio Fossati erected the parish and appointed don Francesco Smeriglio as its first parish priest. Fossati, archbishop of Turin from 1930 to 1965, was a builder of parishes in the industrial belt, and this foundation belonged to his later years as archbishop. Don Smeriglio opened the oratory and kindergarten before turning to the project for a real church, which was realised only in the early 1990s — delayed in part, the parish records, by a land expropriation by the Comune that forced the designs to change. The new church opened for worship in October 1993 and was consecrated by Cardinal Saldarini in January 1994.