In the interwar period the search for a modern image of Catholic churches became very important, especially among the younger generation of architects. This is evident in publications of that time. It was considered that a Catholic church should be united with the tradition not only through the internal sacred content, but also by its external architectural form. The church of Mother of God Ostrobramska, patterned on the shapes of Early Christian basilicas, became a vivid embodiment of this idea.

This church of the Salesian fathers was seen as a votive one ‘...in gratitude for the liberation of Lviv from the ‘Ukrainian’ and later Bolshevik invasion...’ In 1925 the city allocated a site for the construction near the Lychakivskyi park on one side and the Lychakiv railway station on the other; it was in the vicinity of this station that a prestigious cottage settlement called the Professors' Colony arose in the 1930s. In 1929 an architectural competition for the church design was declared. Apart from the church itself, the Salesian fathers wanted to build an educational institution for troubled youth on the allocated area.

Renowned Polish architects were invited to take part in the competition: Wawrzyniec Dajczak, Witold Minkiewicz, and Tadeusz Obmiński from Lviv; Franciszek Mączyński and Adolf Szyszko-Bogusz from Krakow; Oskar Sosnowski from Warsaw. All contestants received a fee of 1000 zlotys. Though the committee found the work of Adolf Szyszko-Bogusz to be the most fascinating, it was the project designed by professor Tadeusz Obmiński that was selected for implementation.

The selected project was patterned on the shapes of Early Christian basilicas with a high campanile tower. The similarity of this design to the project of the church of God's Providence in Warsaw designed by Bohdan Lachert and Józef Szanajca was mentioned in literature. This is not surprising, as the committee was focused on that project while working out the competition terms.

The church was built in 1932-1934, after the death of the project author. The work was managed by Wawrzyniec Dajczak, another participant of the competition. In 1938, the Salesians returned to the idea of ​​building an educational institution for young people, together with a trade school; it would be a living monument of the twentieth anniversary of Poland's independence. However, these plans were hampered by the Second World War.