Vul. Khmelnytskoho, 036 – The St. Onuphrius Church of the Basilian Monastery

The St. Onuphrius monastery in Lviv is one of the oldest in Ukraine. Its founding is dated to the thirteenth century and is associated with the name of Lev Danylovych, or Leo I of Galicia. It is for the first time mentioned in a deed of prince Leo granted to the St. Nicholas church in 1292. The story of the Belz icon of Our Lady, which was painted by St. Luke the Evangelist, seized deceitfully by Władysław Opolski in 1382 and then transported to the monastery in Częstochowa, is also connected with this church.

The first documented records concerning the St. Onuphrius monastery are dated only to the second half of the fifteenth century. Stefan Dropan, a Lviv citizen, renewed it at his own cost in 1460. The monastery foundation was affirmed by the king, Kazimierz IV Jagiełłończyk, in 1469. Till the end of the sixteenth century the St. Onuphrius monastery was dependent on that of Univ, and it was only due to a letter of 13 November 1589 written by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Jeremias II, that the monastery was freed from this subordination, as well as from the authority of the bishop of Lviv, and subordinated to the Lviv Dormition brotherhood. Since that time and till the second half of the eighteenth century the monastery was under the protectorate of the Lviv Stauropegian Brotherhood. Only in 1762 it was emancipated from this dependence.

The oldest, wooden monastery buildings and church were situated in the upper part of the garden. A stone church and a stone monastery were constructed on their current place due to prince Konstanty Ostrogski’s efforts in the sixteenth century. In April of 1518 he bought from some Lviv citizens a ground where in about 1550 a stone church was built which became the core of the contemporary church building. This church consisted of two parts, a bigger one with a lobby and a smaller one, the Holy Trinity chapel; till the seventeenth century these parts existed separately and had separate entrances. The church was damaged by a fire in Lviv’s Krakow suburb in 1623 and during the Turkish siege of 1672. After these events it was rebuilt and consecrated by bishop Yosyp Shumliansky on 10 October 1680. In 1701 the Holy Trinity chapel was enlarged at the expense of Anastasia Krasovska who was the widow of Mykola Krasovsky, a member of the Stauropegian Brotherhood. In 1702 the Brotherhood concluded a contract with Symeon Putiatytsky, a carver who had to make an iconostasis for the chapel. In 1719 a new babynets (women’s room or area) was built; it was dismantled and replaced with the current one in 1824.

In 1770 an unknown architect called “Pochaivsky”, who dwelt in Pochaiv, drew up a project of the construction of a new church and cells de nova radice. However, this majestic Baroque project, with a tall church dome and equally tall towers situated on both sides, was never realized. The project author was, perhaps, Gottfried Hoffman who drew up a project of the construction of the Holy Dormition Lavra in Pochaiv just at that time.
The church interior was considerably changed in the 1780s, under father superior Bonifatiy Krovnytsky. In 1771 the holy gates in the cross wall between the nave and the presbytery were widened, and the priestly choir pews were moved to behind the altar. In 1777 the cross wall was dismantled, and the big altar was replaced with an altar of St. Onuphrius. In 1776 the church and the chapel were connected by an arcade made in the wall between them; the work was managed by architect Franciszek Ksawery Kulczycki and done by Hryhoriy Mizansky, a bricklayer. New altars and iconostases were made in the church and in the chapel at that time. The old iconostasis was cleaned by painter Vasyl Rachkovsky. A new altar of St. Onuphrius was placed in the church in 1773. In 1776 father superior Krovnytsky entered into a contract with Ivan Shchurovsky, a carver who had to reconstruct the old iconostasis of the church as well as the iconostasis of the Holy Trinity chapel and the tabernacle painted by Marcin Stroiński; Lazar Paslavsky, a carver, made a new ambo in the form of a cave with a St. Onuphrius statue (painter Petro Vytavytsky) in 1777 and two angels for the chapel iconostasis in 1778. The joinery for both the church’s and the chapel’s iconostases was made by Teodor Smizhavsky, a joiner. Icons for the Holy Trinity chapel’s iconostasis (the twelve apostles, two in a frame, and the twelve prophets, three in a cartouche) were painted on canvas by Tomas Gertner, a painter, in 1777. The iconostasis made by Ivan Shchurovsky was kept in the church till the early nineteenth century. In 1780 a new “God’s tomb” was made by joiner Havrylo and painter Tomas Gertner Sr. There were five side altars in the church before 1869 and only three later. In 1823 the altar with a crucifix was painted and gilded by Luka Dolynsky.

Great changes were made in the volume and spatial composition of the whole monastery ensemble in the first third of the nineteenth century. After a reconstruction, carried out at that time, the monastery buildings, with some little exceptions, acquired their modern look. A new babynets was constructed under a project drawn up by Franz Trescher in place of the older one built in 1718. During the construction the grave of Stefan Tomşa, a Moldavian prince who was executed in Lviv in 1564 and buried in the church, was found. A metal grating for the choir loft and a binding for the church door were made by Anton Krotokhvylia, a blacksmith. Paintings in the five niches on the façade were made by painter Tomas Gertner Jr. The gravestones of citizen Jacek Połabski’s daughter (1622) and metalworker Kasiyan’s children (1603), covered with carved ornaments, were then built into the wall on both sides of the entrance. The gravestone of Olena Ponetovska (1598), a daughter of a Moldavian prince, Iancula, is built into the wall from the south; the gravestone of Mykhaylo Levkovych, a citizen, in a nice ornamental framing decorated with vine motifs, is built into the wall of the southern sacristy. To the left from the entrance to the church, there is the gravestone (with a Greek inscription) of Mark Langisch built into the wall; there is also the gravestone of Tomşa with the Moldavian coat of arms built into the wall to the right from the entrance.

In 1821, under father superior Arseniy Radkevych, the small semicircular apse was rebuilt and replaced with an elongated rectangular one; a rectangular sacristy was added to it. In 1821, after the death of Radkevych, Modest Hrynevetsky, a new father superior, decided to make the church four sazhens (fathoms) longer to the east and decorate it with a façade. This decision was realized by his successor, Orest Khomchynsky. All the mentioned works in the monastery of St. Onuphrius were conducted by architect Franz Trescher Jr. A new iconostasis made by Luka Dolynsky was installed in 1820; the painter also depicted SS. Arsenius and John Damascene on the presbitery walls. In 1854 the vault and the walls of the church were painted by Marcin Jabłoński.

The last considerable reconstruction of the church, which changed its volume and planning composition, was made in 1902 when the northern nave was added as a pendant to the Holy Trinity chapel. The project was drawn up by architect Edgar Kováts and realized by architect Ivan Levynsky’s construction company. Due to this reconstruction the church got three naves. The faceted apse, having the same width as the nave, was widened at that time and two symmetrically located sacristies were added to it on both sides.

In 1906 the church was painted by Yosyf Bala, a painter and decorator, over the 1854 paintings of Marcin Jabłoński which had been rubbed out. A floor was made in the presbitery and the main altar with a baldachino was placed under a project by Edgar Kováts. In 1908 an iconostasis was carved by Lasok, a carver, and gilded by Bernatsky, a gilder. The icons from the old iconostasis (apostles and prophets) made by Luka Dolynsky, which had been preserved in good condition, were sold out. The new iconostasis icons were painted by Modest Sosenko at the metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky’s expense in 1905-1909. Due to these changes in the church interior, a lot of old and valuable works of art (altars, icons) of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were removed; some were passed to other monasteries and churches, some were left in the monastery museum.
As for today, only the following  old works have been preserved in the church: a well painted wood altarpiece of St. Onuphrius (seventeenth or eighteenth century) brought from the monastery in Dobromyl; side chapels altars, that of the Most Holy Mother of God in the northern chapel and that of the Heart of Jesus in the southern chapel, made in the late nineteenth century. They were carved and painted by M. Shchurma, a self-educated Basilian monk. The ambo in the form of a cave has been destroyed, and the 1777 statue of St. Onuphrius lies somewhere in the attic.

The St. Onuphrius monastery existed till 1946 when it was abolished by the Soviet authorities. The church of St. Onuphrius was used by the Museum of Ethnography and Art Crafts as a funds depository; the Ivan Fedorov Museum was opened there in 1977.
In the church of St. Onuphrius, there is the grave of Ivan Fedorovych (Fedorov), a printer who published two books, Apostol (The Apostle) and Bukvar (The Primer), in Lviv in 1574, marking the beginning of Ukrainian book printing. The gravestone of Ivan Fedorovych was preserved there till 1883; in 1977 the Ivan Fedorov Museum, a branch of the Lviv Picture Gallery (later Lviv Art Gallery), was opened and functioned till 1989 there.

The St. Onuphrius monastery was the center of the Basilian order’s Galician province. In 1989 the monastery and the church were restituted to their rightful owners. The church interior was renewed in 1990-1991. Yosyf Bala’s paintings, which had been whitewashed, were restored by painters Yaroslav Zayats and Ivan Volos on the grounds of probes made by Yaroslav Movchan, a painter and restorer. In 1993 two stained glass windows, “Simeon the God-receiver” and “The Sacrifice of Abraham”, were made in the presbitery windows (O. Horobets, Yuriy Bak, Baranovsky).  In 1999 a forged metal handrail, a highly professional work of art, was made by Oleh Bonkovsky on the stairs leading to the church.