Location: Saint George Square, 5
The Archcathedral of St. George (formerly the Cathedral Church of
St. George) in Lviv is the cathedral of the Galician Metropolis of
the UGCC, until 1817 at the Vasiliyan monastery, a baroque-rococo
monumental architectural ensemble with distinctive national features
(1744–1762), considered the main shrine of Ukrainian Greek
Catholics, before the construction of the Patriarchal Cathedral of
the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv.
It is located on
Sviatoyurska Gora, at the address: St. Yura Square No. 5. Height
above sea level is 321 meters.
Since 1998, the Cathedral,
together with the Ensemble of the Historical Center of Lviv, has
been a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The cathedral itself is part of a
complex: a baroque cathedral (1745–1770) with a belfry (a bell from
1341), a rococo one with classicist porticos of the metropolitan
chamber (1761–1762), chapter houses, a terrace with two-armed
stairs, an openwork fence around the cathedral courtyard with two
gates in the courtyard (1771) and walls surrounding chapter houses
and metropolitan gardens (1772).
The centuries-old
architectural history of the Svyatoyura Monastery can be
conditionally divided into two major periods according to the
history of its main building. The first period lasted for almost
half a millennium — from the beginnings of the monastery to about
the middle of the 18th century — and ended with the destruction of
the old temple. The second period began with the construction of a
new cathedral, which later became a new reference point in the
purposeful formation of the future ensemble. It ended in the 19th
century, when the last of the existing buildings appeared.
In
older sources, it is the Cathedral of St. George.
According to an ancient legend, this place has
been inhabited since around 1280. At the same time, there was a cave. It
is still not clear whether it was artificial or natural. The monk Vasyl
(Basilisk) secluded himself in it, who in constant prayers atoned for
earthly sins. This legend dates back to ancient times, but was first
recorded by Lviv researcher Bartolomei Zimorovych in the 17th century.
At that time, Basilisk, the son of Leo, a prince of a cruel spirit,
but, as often happens with the Greeks, because of his young summers
spent carelessly, in his old age he voluntarily cut his hair into a monk
and settled in a cave overgrown with thorns, which stood as an opening
on the slope of a hill that rose above back of the city He was more like
a faun than a man - bristly, uncombed, with big eyebrows, thin,
overgrown, with a beard that reached his knees, covering the nakedness
of his body like a shield or a carpet. With such inhuman rigor of life,
he redeemed the inhuman variety of prisoners that he led twenty years
ago in Sudomyr, so it is generally said. On his advice, Leo built a
beech church on the top of that hill, surrounded it with monastic cells
and gave it under the care of Saint Yuri, the elder of the army of
saints, a leader for himself against the Poles and a comrade for the
stria who fought against the ghosts of hell.
As Volodymyr
Sichynskyi believed, in the legend of the mysterious Basilisk,
individual events and persons were strangely mixed up in time. Indeed,
Prince Vasylko Romanovych, well-known from the annals, in 1259 did not
voluntarily accompany the enemy troops of the Mongol-Tatar commander
Burundai to Sudomyr. This happened after the prince was forced to
voluntarily surrender to foreigners and even "scatter" and set fire to
Volodymyr's city fortifications in Volyn. According to the chronicler,
as a result of the Tatar campaign on Sudomyr, almost all of its
population died. However, there is no doubting the historical evidence
that Prince Vasylko Romanovych died much earlier than the date indicated
in the legend and was buried in the Church of the Assumption of the
Blessed Virgin Mary in Kholm in 1269. Therefore, the face of the
mysterious Basilisk has different, ambiguous interpretations. For
example, the Polish researcher Oleksandr Cholowski, following the
historian Izidor Sharanevich, identified Vasylisk as Lavrysh Rymont, son
of Troydenov.
There are also other versions about the first
church on Svyatoyurska Gora. In particular, there is a version that the
St. George's Church and Monastery was founded by the Galician Prince Lev
Danylovych, who in 1282 brought the body of his father, King Danylo,
from Halych to the already existing monastery. Although Svyatoyurska
Gora did not stand out as actively as Zamkova on the opposite bank of
Poltva, neither in terms of absolute height marks, nor in terms of the
general territory suitable for construction, however, according to the
information of Martin Gruneweg, which he heard from old residents, it
was this the mountain attracted the attention of the prince's servants
when they began to build the castle. Then, by order of the prince, a
church was built here in honor of St. George. M. Gruneweg even concluded
that "...the Jura church was the first building in the city after the
castle."
Among the other alleged founders of the monastery, there
is also the name of Prince Yuriy Lvovych, but there is no unambiguous
documentary confirmation of any of these versions.
Regarding the
consecration, most researchers are inclined to believe that the
consecration of the temple was connected with the name of St. Yuri from
the very beginning, although the history of temple architecture provides
us with numerous examples of re-consecrations that occurred under
different circumstances, especially during changes in religious
affiliation. In general, churches in the name of St. Yuri were quite
common among Orthodox, and later Greek-Catholic churches, as evidenced
by studies of the statistics of church dedications of the Lviv Diocese
of the Eastern Rite.
According to the latest researcher Ihor
Mytsk, the poisoning of the last Galician-Volyn prince Yuri II (Boleslav
Troydenovich) took place precisely in the Church of St. George on April
7, 1340. After the death of Yuri II, Casimir III captured Lviv. During
the attack, according to ancient legends, the Russian inhabitants turned
the monastery into a place of stubborn resistance and after the king
acquired fortifications, they were all killed. This story is confirmed
by the records of Metropolitan Lev Sheptytskyi. In the fire of a great
fire, the first church of St. George also burned down. Some Polish
authors tried to present this information as fiction, not supported by
facts, and the responsibility for the large-scale destruction in the
city was placed on the Lithuanian troops who tried to strengthen Prince
Dmytro Lubart in Galicia.
The first indisputable proof of the
actual existence of the St. George Church can be considered the
information given in the form of a commemorative inscription on the
ancient copper bell, which is still located in the cathedral bell tower.
At least two important conclusions can be drawn from this
inscription: firstly, the mention of the name of Prince Dmitry most
likely indicates his direct involvement in the production of the bell in
the role of patron and donor, secondly, from the point of view of
chronology, this information indicates that due to a year after
Casimir's invasion, the temple functioned at a monastery headed by Abbot
Euthymius.
Not all researchers agree with the opinion that the
first temple was wooden. In particular, there is another version, which
was well substantiated by Y. Dyba: the first temple was not made of
wood, but built of hewn stone blocks.
The old church was
repeatedly destroyed and reconstructed. So, in particular, M. Gruneweg
at the beginning of the 17th century. regarding this church, noted: "in
my time, it was completely walled up." From A. Petrushevich's
presentation, we learn that in 1608 "...on Easter Sunday, thunder struck
the church of St. George and the cross of the church from above and the
stone in which the cross stood, and the images inside the church burned
and the throne broke in two." It was also reported that "in 1643... St.
George burned down", and in 1648 "Lviv, defending itself, burned the
suburbs all around the district... in the church of Saint George, the
corpses of 54 people were killed, and the Tatar fell on the very throne
and crashed." . It is also known that the Turks caused considerable
damage to the temple in 1672.
The first references to the construction of the brick cathedral of
St. George in ancient literary sources are found in the works of the
Lviv historian, councilor and burgomaster of the 17th century.
Bartholomew Zimorovych's "Triple Lviv" ("Leopolis Triplex"), which is
sometimes tentatively called "Zymorovych's Chronicle". The author of the
chronicle provides information about the construction of the church in
different places of the text under two different dates: first - 1363,
and then - 1437. The next mention of the church of St. Yuriy in "Triple
Lviv"
It is known that B. Zimorovych was not a witness to those
distant events, so his work, like any compilative chronicle, was
certainly not without inaccuracies and errors. In favor of such
suspicion regarding the given characteristics of the old church of St.
Yuriy may be what is in this chronicle of B. Zimorovych, but in another
place, we find another, almost similar message, submitted under a much
later date, namely under 1437:
Churches are being built -
Armenian and St. Yuriy. Armenians and Ruthenians, using the services of
the same builder, in those days built two identical temples, of the same
size and type. Armenians - in the walls of the city in honor of the
Virgin, taken to the bosom of heaven; Ruthenians - in the suburbs in
honor of the ancient warrior of their people St. Yuri.
It is very
difficult and almost impossible to separate the solid truth from
distortion or conjecture in these two chronicles. Therefore, in the
future, researchers and commentators of B. Zimorovych's work explained
these two contradictory messages in different ways.
Two views
dominate. The first, formulated back in the 19th century. by Denys
Zubrytskyi in his famous work "Chronicle of the City of Lviv" and later
accepted by many historians, was based on the assumption that B.
Zimorovych mistakenly duplicated one and the same event in his
chronicle, therefore only the first date should be considered reliable,
that is, 1363. the reference to 1437 was considered by D. Zubrytskyi as
erroneous, repeated about the same event. Subsequently, D. Zubrytsky's
assumption was supported by Vladyslav Lozinsky in the book "Lviv Art in
the XVI-XVII Centuries. Architecture and sculpture", where once again
the established in the 19th century is repeated. information about the
fact that these two churches - Armenian and Svyatoyurska - became the
first new buildings after the landmark year of 1370 for the city. It is
specially emphasized that both churches were not only the creations of
the same master, but were also built, according to B. Zimorovnch, "quod
schema unifonne fabricae utrinsque facit manifestuin", that is, they had
a similar structural arrangement and appearance. This emphasis gave
certain grounds for at least an approximate idea of the architectural
appearance of the first brick church of St. Yura, since the ancient
Armenian temple was well preserved and could serve as a real object for
comparisons and certain architectural conclusions. I. Mytsko also
supported this version in his commentary on the latest translation of
"Triple Lviv".
Another point of view was first presented in the
so-called "Chronicle of St. Yury" ("Book of Deeds...") and repeatedly
repeated later in the works of Volodymyr Sichynskyi, Ivan Krypyakevich,
Volodymyr Vuytsyk, and others. Both reports in B. Zimorovych's chronicle
were connected by these researchers with real events. So, they needed a
reasoned explanation. The essence of the explanation came down to the
fact that in the chronicle of B. Zimorovych, two different moments in
the history of the Church of St. George were recorded: in 1363, the new
building was only begun, and in 1437, after many years unfavorable for
the continuation of construction, it was finally brought to full
completion. V. Sichynskyi in the monograph "Architecture of the
Cathedral of St. Yura in Lviv" even indicated the possibility of a later
adjustment of these two different dates, indicated by B. Zimorovych, to
the specific names of the ancient abbots of the Sviatoyura monastery,
who, as it were, alternately took care of the difficult and long-term
construction of the temple. The names of the abbots Euthymius,
Parthenius, Gideon and Lavrentius are mentioned. A certain bias of this
artificial division of dates into the beginning and end of construction
is easily seen, since such a distinction does not follow from the text
of B. Zimorovych's chronicle. But it must be admitted that there are no
sufficient grounds for categorically denying this either. The Polish
researcher T. Mankowski formulated his special position regarding the
determination of the start date and duration of the construction of the
first brick temple in a critical review of V. Sichinsky's monograph.
Skeptical of the factual accuracy of B. Zimorovych's work and at the
same time using previously little-known documentary primary sources
related to the activities of the Armenian community in Lviv in ancient
times, he determines 1363 as the date not of the beginning, but rather
of the completion of the construction of the Armenian church. In this
way, he questioned not only the synchronicity of construction works
declared by B. Zimorovych, but also the fundamental architectural
affinity of the two churches.
Despite such warnings, B.
Zimorovych's information gave a reason for the approximate architectural
characteristics of the first brick church of St. Yura. Given the
possibility of a close analogy between the old Sviatoyursky Church and
the Armenian Church, the majority of researchers suggested that the
first brick church of St. Yura also belonged to the fairly common
Byzantine type of three-nave, four-column, transept-bath, one-story
planning and spatial system. This assumption is not unfounded, since
Martin Gruneweg already stated in his notes that it was "built in the
Ukrainian way". V. Sichynskyi characterized it as a Ukrainian-Byzantine
type of building and even compared it with many well-known examples of
ancient Russian architecture - for example, with the St. George's Church
in Kanev. Analogous definitions have spread in special literature as an
axiom and often occur even in the latest publications of a review
nature.
The name of the architect remains unknown for sure to
this day. It appeared in various sources, including B. Zimorovych, as
Dore. Such a transcription by Vl. Lozynski considered it a mechanical
typo and, based on archival research, identified it with the builder
whose last name in the version "Doringus murator" was repeatedly
mentioned in the oldest city books of Lviv, which included a
chronological shade from 1382 to 1389. In such a transcription as
Doring, which was supposed to testify, obviously, to his German origin,
this last name was later repeatedly mentioned in historical literature.
According to Vl. Lozynskyi, the mysterious master Doring died around
1384, since it was then that in his deeds and documents there are rare
references to the composition of his property inheritance and its
further fate [126, p. WITH]. At the same time, T. Mankovskyi denied
Doering's authorship. According to the archival evidence he found, it
should have been the Italian architect Dorchi or Dorchi. According to
the logic of T. Mankovskyi, the architectural affinity of the two
temples should also be recognized as unlikely, although he did not
reject the participation of the same architect on both construction
sites. Therefore, given the hypothetical architectural affinity of these
two temples, T. Mankovsky assumed that "...the medieval cathedral of St.
Yura could also have a bath from the outside in the form of a
multifaceted drum covered with a tent roof. According to other
architectural and planning characteristics, the church of St. Jura,
unlike the Armenian temple, should be much closer to the local
temple-building tradition, and not to the Armenian prototype imported
from Kafa. The author did not specify what exactly this closeness
consisted of. One can guess that it was a pillarless, three-part,
single-bay type of building.
Since "murator" is mentioned in B.
Zimorovych's chronicle, it is logical to assume that the old
Svyatoyursky temple was also built of stone. It is unlikely that it was
only brick, as B. Zimorovych says, given the inconsistency of the status
of a country church with the high cost of this building material in the
conditions of that time. Obviously, natural stone was also used, the
supply of which from numerous surrounding quarries was not problematic.
The informative limitation of written sources and the lack of convincing
iconography led to the emergence of another hypothesis regarding the
architectural and spatial morphology of the old church of St. Yura. The
origins of this hypothesis have a background related to the analysis of
an engraving of the general appearance of Lviv, made by F. Hogenberg
based on a drawing by A. Passarotti and printed in 1618 in the sixth
volume of George Brown's edition "Civitates Orbis Terrarum". This highly
valuable and widely known iconographic document is considered the first
panoramic image of Lviv buildings as of the beginning of the 17th
century. Despite the very approximate, generalized nature of the image
of individual buildings, in general, it has a huge cognitive value and
quite informatively reproduces the urban planning situation. Back in the
1930s, the Polish researcher Janusz Witwicki made a bold assumption
about this engraving that the building in the form of a rotunda with an
annex, which is depicted on the left in the foreground of the panorama,
is the church of St. Yura. However, he noted: since Passarotti executed
his drawing, apparently, from the roof of the St. George's Church, she
herself could not get into the reproduced panorama. Explaining this
inconsistency, Y. Vitvitsky claims that the church in this image "was
painted in a medieval way" based on purely creative, compositional
considerations of the artist. This seems very unlikely, considering the
purpose of A. Passarotti's visit to Lviv (the construction of
fortifications) and his rational, "engineering" way of reproducing urban
development. Probably, that is why this assumption of Y. Vitvitsky
remained ignored for a long time and in the writings about the Cathedral
of St. Yura was not mentioned. But many years later, this version,
albeit very cautiously, was accepted by the modern Polish researcher
Witold Szolginia, who, however, did not resort to far-reaching,
categorical conclusions. Diba His main thesis was that from the very
beginning, that is, as early as 1280, Prince Lev Danylovych built the
church of St. Yuriy in the form of a brick rotunda, which in the
following centuries, until its final dismantling in 1743, only underwent
certain transformations. The construction work on the construction of
the brick church, which was discussed in the chronicle of B. Zimorovych,
was qualified by the researcher as the installation of a new basilica
annex to the already existing rotunda church. Further efforts of the
researcher are also aimed at protecting the "rotunda-like version" of
the old church of St. Yura. It must be admitted that the arguments
regarding the identification of the structure depicted in the engraving
as the old church of St. Yura still leaves considerable room for healthy
skepticism. It is based on the disputability of Y. Vitvitskyi's original
thesis that A. Passarotti consciously transformed the drawing, adding to
the image a fragment that he could not actually see from Sviatoyurskaya
Hill or even from the roof of the old church itself. Failure to accept
this thesis should mean that on the engraving we see a relatively
accurate image of some real, but later lost building, which was really
in front of the artist's eyes and was located much lower on the relief
(this is evidenced by its perspective), most likely, directly at the
foot of the mountain. In this case, the question arises: what could it
be? After all, even on the oldest building plans of Lviv - the images of
A. Passarotti, the building really does not have a convincingly
attributed counterpart. There can be only one explanation for this: this
building did not already exist at the time of execution of the known
city plans. We have reason to believe that it was the so-called
episcopal winter residence with a chapel located in the lower part of
the episcopal garden. This assumption is confirmed by the information of
one of the witnesses in the court case between the Basilians and the
secular clergy. In 1766, this 80-year-old witness testified:
Down
under the mountain from the north were the winter quarters where Bishop
Shumlyansky lived, and across from that winter residence there was a
painted chapel in the rooms, and two bells under a roof in the gazebo.
The winter residence under the mountain opposite the monastery and the
chapel with the bell tower were dismantled by Dionysiy Sinkevich, Lviv
official, after the death of Bishop Josyp Shumlyanskyi, and the
outbuildings were put on display.
So, "under the mountain
opposite the monastery" - which is approximately where the circus
building is now located - was the bishop's residence with a rotunda-type
chapel attached to it with a tent roof and bells under it. It was her,
obviously, that was drawn by A. Passarotti, and in the process of
engraving she acquired more monumental features, which could well have
happened due to the artistic and compositional considerations of the
artist of the engraving board.
The existence of a residence in
this low-lying area is also confirmed by the oldest fixed plan of
Svyatoyurska Gora, found by V. Vuytsyk in the Central Historical Archive
of Lviv, although it is depicted here in a very general way. It can be
thought that at the time of drawing up this fixed plan, the winter
residence lost its meaning and was probably rebuilt in a much simplified
form compared to what we see in F. Hogenberg's engraving. But at the
same time, the very existence of the residence in the middle of the 18th
century. in the same area as at the beginning of the 17th century,
attests to a certain tradition in its spatial localization. The
historical roots of such a "lowland" location of the residence could
very well go back to the much older era of the reign of Bishop Gideon
Balaban, therefore, at the time of the execution of A. Passarotti's
drawing, it could already exist in a full functional dimension.
So far, the version according to which the old church approached the
original appearance of the Armenian Church in Lviv in terms of its basic
architectural features and physical scale remains more convincing. Just
such a relatively small one-bay temple could occupy a very limited area
on the rocky and inconvenient for building top of this hill.
Such
a conservative view of the old church of St. Yura has recently been
enriched with a new strong argument in its favor. At the beginning of
the 1990s, the tireless explorer of archival funds and museum
storekeepers, V. Vuytsyk, came across an unknown portrait of Athanasius
Sheptytsky, the founder of the new cathedral[43]. Under the bust of the
still young bishop, an unknown artist placed a drawing of the church
wrapped in a symbolic ribbon with the pathetic inscription "Romanum
capies facile hoc de monte galerum". As we can see, this not only
metaphorically testified the religious affiliation of the shrine and the
bishop to the Roman throne, but also casually acknowledged its location
"on the mountain" - certainly that of St. In addition, the reproduction
of the old cathedral church in the portrait of the person who later
became the initiator of the construction of the new church is also quite
convincing. The picture of the old church symbolically complements the
detailed portrait composition. Therefore, it turned out to be somewhat
generalized, but realistic enough for specific conclusions. The old
church is depicted from the northeast from an imaginary vantage point
that corresponds to the horizon line passing just above the main eaves.
The altar part of the temple with a large central apse and much narrower
side apses is clearly visible. The apses are the same height as the main
volume of the building, covered with a gable roof. In the middle of the
ridge of the roof, there is an onion-shaped bathhouse on a small faceted
pedestal. It seems that the yoke had eight faces. In the outer walls, on
the same level, window openings of the same size are shown - three on
the north wall and one each on the apses. Such a number of windows may
be an indirect sign of the three-part internal spatial structure. Small
windows are also depicted on each side of the pant. The presence of
overhead lighting may indicate the existence of four internal supports
in the structure of the temple, which were supposed to support the
footstool. The small diameter of the lintel relative to the main volume
of the building can be explained either by the inaccuracy of the
artist's rendering of the proportions, or by the pillarless character of
the vault on cross elastic arches. The end surfaces of the gable roof
are covered with gables. They barely protrude beyond the plane of the
roof, which, according to M. Gruneweg, already at the beginning of the
17th century. was made of tin. So, the picture shows all the basic signs
that the old church of St. Yura was indeed close to the Armenian temple
in terms of its volumetric and spatial structure and physical scale.
Some suspicions of significant changes may be caused by the shape of the
top (bathhouse, underfloor, roof) — that part of the building that is
always most exposed to the risk of loss and alteration. Regarding this,
the assumption of V. Vuytsyk about the possibility of existence under
the slopes of the roof of an invisible bath also has certain grounds.
Less probable is his version about the three-conch layout of the temple,
since it is contradicted by the nature of the three-dimensional
divisions.
A similar image of an unknown church can be found on
an engraving by the famous Ukrainian master Nikodym Zubrytsky, made by
him during his stay in the Svyatoyura Monastery, as an illustration for
one of the editions of the local printing house. The widespread habit
among contemporary artists of filling hagiographic subjects with images
of actual sacred buildings, albeit without documentary accuracy, gives
reason to assert that the Lviv works of N. Zubrytskyi were no exception
either. The engraving with the scene of the Intercession shows a
noticeable affinity with the image of the temple in A. Sheptytskyi's
portrait, not only by the perspective and similar proportions of the
architectural masses, but also by the presence of an adjacent building
under the northern wall of the church, where modest monastic cells and
episcopal chambers were located. We can speak confidently about some
characteristic features of the location of the old temple. In
particular, the old church, unlike the existing one, was oriented along
the east-west axis, that is, its altar part was oriented to the east,
while the altar of the new cathedral, on the contrary, was directed to
the west. It can be argued that the original orientation of the altar
caused a different direction of the main approach to the temple than the
one that exists today. It is worth noting that the layout outline of the
old temple was undoubtedly located in the eastern part of the new
temple, and its physical dimensions, if we take into account the
large-scale analogy with the Armenian church, were almost three times
smaller in length and approximately twice in width. Therefore, the old
temple cannot be considered monumental, although its modest dimensions
still had one advantage: they provided much more free space around the
building. A common feature of the old and new churches is the
advantageous location of the church on the highest point of the
Svyatoyurskaya mountain. Actually, there could be no other solution due
to the very limited territory. Therefore, the hypothetical option of
building a new temple next to the old one, as it sometimes happened in
the process of building monastic complexes1, would be very complicated
in this case. It was also impossible not to take into account the
geological features of the site - the presence of individual fragments
of natural rock, which were later discovered by V. Sichynskyi under the
floor during archaeological sounding. It turned out that in the eastern
part of the church, a rocky natural continent is located at a distance
of 65-110 cm from the floor surface. So, now one can only imagine that
the old temple of the adjacent territory was located on a rather
distinct rocky elevated relief, as on a kind of natural platform.
Subsequently, after the construction of the new church, this natural
stylobate platform was leveled around the cathedral with a new
horizontal paving, and in order to connect the much lower pre-cathedral
square with the zero level of the church, it was necessary to arrange a
formal two-step staircase along the axis of the main entrance.
Buildings of various purposes were located around the old church. On the
fixation plan of Clemens Xavier Fessinger, you can still see part of
these buildings, except for those that fell within the boundaries of the
foundations of the new cathedral and did not exist at the time of the
execution of the plan. Among them was the chapel of the Protection of
the Mother of God, attached to the old church. The miraculous icon of
the Mother of God of Terebovlya was kept in it until the last moment.
B. Zimorovych submits under the year 1453 in connection with the
capture of the Eastern Christian capital of Constantinople by the
Ottoman Turks. The city authorities of Lviv were frightened by this
tragic event and had to take precautionary measures:
Since the news
spread that Constantinople had been handed over to the Turks by the
Greeks, and many of them, expelled from their homes, fled to Lviv, a
state arrival was introduced so that fugitives were allowed to enter the
city only after taking an oath. Finally, Russian churches were counted,
and at that time there were eight of them, namely: city, St. Yuriy, St.
Onufria, St. Nicholas, St. Fedora, Epiphany, Voskresenska and
Blagovishchenska.
The social and material situation of the
Svyatoyura Monastery in the middle of the 15th century was obviously not
certain, and it probably changed its patron quite often. It is noted
that in 1430 he allegedly fell into dependence on the Armenian family of
Kalenikovich, against whom royal officials and a certain nobleman Andriy
of Malekhov "lit up" in court proceedings. Later, in 1442–1455, old Lviv
documents mention an Armenian - Petrus Hamladinovych from the Lviv
Monastery of St. Yuriy.
At the end of the 15th century The
Svyatoyura monastery owned huge land plots around the city, as evidenced
by B. Zimorovych's record in 1497:
The king himself, having arrived
at the beginning of June with numerous detachments of horse and foot,
pitched tents on the vast fields of St. Yuriy, where he stayed until
June 26, waiting for provincial reserves...
The monastery became
the residence of its leader, the governor of the Galician
Metropolitanate and Archimandrite Isakiy Gdashytskyi in the 1520s and
1530s.
In 1537, numerous tents of the royal army were again
pitched "on the far-reaching fields of St. Yuri." In 1539, the
Svyatoyura church became the center of a newly formed diocese, headed by
a merchant, and at that time the abbot of the Svyatoyura monastery,
Makariy (Tuchapskyi). He put a lot of effort into organizing church
affairs and his cathedral, in which, as he said, "the praise of God"
could not take place because of the devastation[52]. Since the 1530s,
the ancient temple, having received the episcopal chair, acquired the
significance with which it traditionally appears in history.
After the Union of Lublin in 1569, the Orthodox Church was often
involved in sharp confrontations with the city authorities and the
Catholic clergy. So, in particular, on the first day of the Christmas
holidays (January 3) 1584, the church of St. Yura was suddenly captured
by the servants of the Catholic Archbishop of Lviv Jan Dimitar
Solikovskyi. Local priests Sava and Ivan were forcibly removed from the
service of God, the monastery gates were sealed. The then Lviv bishop
Gedeon Balaban had to start a legal process to restore justice, which
ended in favor of the plaintiff. Three weeks later, the gates were
opened.
During the liberation war of 1648-1657, the hetman's
troops of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi camped under Svyatoyurska Gora on the
spacious suburbs and fields belonging to the monastery. Khmelnytskyi
himself lived in the monastery. Here he received the ambassador of the
city community, Bishop Arseniy Zhelyborsky, authorized under any
conditions to prevent a devastating assault on the city and to come to a
peaceful understanding with the Cossack leader.
In the end, the
parties managed to come to an agreement and "the town of Lviv paid for
itself and gave to the Horde and Khmelnytskyi." Subsequently,
unsuccessful negotiations with the ambassadors of the Polish king Jan
Casimir took place here.
In 1668, Joseph (Shumlyanskyi) fought
for the church of St. George with the Metropolitan of Kyiv, Antoni
Vynnytskyi. Y.Shumlyansky's soldiers attacked the defense monastery, cut
down fences and gates, and severely beat the metropolitan's servants. A.
Vynnytskyi went down the spear to the window, where he was surrounded by
soldiers; redeemed himself with his gold chain. J. Shumlyanskyi took the
episcopal mitres, robes, clothes, carpets, weapons, tableware, wine
barrels, carriage horses, etc. The case reached the court, which
recognized J.Shumlyanskyi as a bishop.
Soviet period
In the
Soviet period, with the decision of the Lviv Council of 1946, which
decreed the abolition of the Brest Union. The cathedral passed with its
property to the Russian Orthodox Church. On April 6, 1990, by a decision
of the Lviv City Council, it was transferred to the Ukrainian
Greek-Catholic Church.
The idea of building a new cathedral
The time of construction of
the new cathedral of St. Yura almost coincided with the construction of
another architectural masterpiece of Lviv, the Dominican Church
(architect: Jan de Witte, 1740-1764). During these years, a number of
other religious buildings also appeared in the city - the churches of
St. Anthony, St. Martin, St. Nicholas, the collegium of the Order of PR,
etc.
The idea of a new building on Svyatoyurska Gora belonged to
Metropolitan Atanasii Sheptytskyi. According to historical sources, this
was a person very devoted to God-pleasing work, a firm character,
consistent and purposeful in carrying out his plans. Holding episcopal,
and later metropolitan positions, A. Sheptytskyi initiated numerous new
church buildings in the dioceses subordinate to him in Galicia, Podil
and Volhynia. Over time, the old church of Svyatoyura, which served as a
cathedral, could no longer meet its special status, being significantly
inferior even to some parish churches. The situation was further
complicated by the fact that the old temple was actually in dual use -
by the secular clergy and the monks of the Basilian monastery - which
led to misunderstandings and even conflict situations. These
circumstances led to the decision to demolish the old church and build a
new one that would meet the requirements of the time.
At first,
the bishop planned to renovate the ancient cathedral, which coincided in
time with his accession to the post of Metropolitan of Kyiv. Before
1733, the consistory decided to collect funds for the "cathedral
factory". On the instructions of the metropolitan, this was carried out
by Father Jeronim Ostrovsky, ChSVV. However, the governors (deans) were
in no hurry to send the funds and actually ignored the appeals of the
metropolitan representative. That is why the metropolitan took it upon
himself to restore order and on October 11, 1733, sent a pastoral letter
to the vicarages located south of Lviv, resolutely demanding the
provision of funds under the threat of removal from office. It is not
known how the situation developed. The lack of specific evidence about
the work in the cathedral at that time does not allow us to say about
their wide deployment.
In the middle of the XIX century. an
unexpected and rather serious threat loomed over the Svyatoyura
Ensemble. The Austrian authorities considered the territory adjacent to
it as one of the possible options for the creation of a powerful
military citadel based on the latest rules of such construction - with
powerful casemates, Zeichhaus, artillery positions, etc. If this
territory were chosen, the ensemble would have not only an undesirable
neighbor, but also a danger from possible military actions. Fortunately,
preference was given to another site, and the construction of the
citadel was started a little south of the cathedral.
Construction
of a modern cathedral
A detailed fixation plan of the entire
architectural complex has been preserved as of the 1750s, that is, at
the beginning of the construction of the cathedral. An analytical
description of this plan is given in the publication of V. Vuytsyk, who
searched for it and regarded it as a document specially concluded for
the judicial land dispute between the co-owners of Svyatoyurska Gora —
the Basilian monks and Bishop Lev Sheptytskyi. The plan gives a fairly
complete picture of the buildings and the nature of their location on
the mountain at the time when the new church of St. Yura.
The
first thing that seems fundamental from the point of view of the
functional and spatial planning of the adjacent territory is its clear
division into monastic and episcopal lands with a noticeable advantage
in favor of the Basilians. The monks owned mainly the western part, the
bishop - the eastern. The walk around the new church was unobstructed,
although it was very much squeezed from the north by the monastic
building, and from the south by a high wall arranged along the line of a
steep cliff, which can be considered the remains of the southern
curtain.
In addition, we learn from the plan that there were only
three masonry structures at the time: the new church itself, the
monastery building along the north side of the church with its own
separate entrance at the eastern end, and a small masonry gate with a
wooden superstructure for the watchman - about , where the upper gate is
now located. The rest of the farm and residential buildings, including
the episcopal residence, were made of wood. The old L-shaped bishop's
residence was located opposite the main entrance to the new church, but
the axes of the main entrances to the residence and the new church did
not coincide.
In addition to the named buildings, in the adjacent
territory, mainly from the south and west, there were several small
residential and commercial buildings, in particular, a courtyard with a
stable and a carriage house for the bishop's people. Near the altar part
of the new cathedral, two hexagonal, obviously wooden turrets are
schematically shown, which may have been somehow connected with the
bastions, which at that time no longer existed. The buried and silted
pond, located at the western foot of the mountain, also attracts
attention and indicates the existence of fishing here. In general, the
spatial grouping of individual buildings demonstrates the absence of a
clear compositional idea and the spontaneous evolution of the complex
over the previous centuries, dictated by purely pragmatic and landscape
factors. The construction of the Greek Catholic cathedral began in 1744
(or 1745) according to the project of Bernard Meretin, who until the end
of his life (1759) worked on improving the architectural features of the
temple. After his death, the construction was continued by Clemens
Xavier Fessinger. The works continued until 1764. The finishing works
were completed in 1770 or 1772.
The spatial composition of the
cathedral is expressed by the nave volume formed by the high nave and
transept, but in plan, thanks to the corner rooms, it is perceived as a
three-nave church with an elongated nave and an altar, which have the
same width as the average nave. Four supporting pillars support a system
of vaults with the main bath and smaller baths above the lowered rooms
in the outer corners of the spatial cross. The bath on a massive
tetrahedron serves as an organizational element to which other
architectural volumes of the building are subordinated. In the original
project by Bernard Meretin (kept in the Lviv National Museum), which
depicts a longitudinal section of the church, not only the central
volume, but also the altar and vestibule are completed with a dome. Such
a compositional solution brought the monument closer to traditional
tribal Ukrainian churches. However, the architect replaced the side
baths with cross vaults.
The temple stands on a terrace to which
a two-step staircase leads, decorated with a balustrade and sculptures
of geniuses by S. Stazhevsky. The facade of the church is accentuated by
a monumental portal with the figures of the fathers of the Eastern
Church, Athanasius and Leo, by the sculptor Ivan Heoriy Pinzel.
The sculptural group "Yurii the Snake Wrestler" crowning the attic is
also Pinzel's work. In 1768-1770, sculptors Sebastian Fesinger, Mykhailo
Filevych, painters Luka Dolynskyi, Yurii Radyvylivskyi, and Francisk
Smuglevych worked on the interior decoration of the church.
About the existence of an ancient fortified cemetery on Svyatoyurska
Gora in the middle of the 19th century. Isidor Sharanevich mentioned in
his book "Ancient Lviv". According to V. Vuytsyk, on the oldest plan of
the monastery, this cemetery covered the territory adjacent to the
cathedral on the southern side, but much lower in relief.
Exterior
St. George's Cathedral is built on a Greek isosceles cross
with four chapels between the arms of the cross and miniature baths
under the roof, in the center with a large bath on a wide drum resting
on spring arches. At the top, the structure is covered by a cornice.
Numerous pilasters, paired (on a drum) and doubled on the walls of the
cathedral, crowned with stone rococo lanterns, give the structure a
slenderness. At the entrance to the cathedral, a spiral staircase was
built with a Rococo openwork balustrade decorated with vases and chains.
On the facade, on both sides of the main entrance, there are statues of
Metropolitans Athanasius and Leo, above the entrance there is a balcony,
a high window, a pediment with the coat of arms of the Sheptytskyi and
an attic, completed with an equestrian statue of St. Yuri the Snake
Wrestler by the Galician sculptor Johann Georg Pinzel. The courtyard in
front of the cathedral is closed by two Rococo gates decorated with
allegorical figures symbolizing Faith and Hope and the Church of Rome
and the Church of Greece.
Interior
The interior of the
cathedral was painted by S. Fabianskyi (1876), Yu. Radyvylivskyi
performed the large composition "Bishops" and "Appearance to the
Apostles", M. Smuglevych (altarpiece composition "Christ's Preaching",
which was brought from Vilnius with the assistance of the Kastelian
Katarzyna Kossakovska) and " Christ-Pantokrator" in the bath, L.
Dolynskyi - pendant icons, oval icons of the prophets and 16 scenes of
holidays. The sculptural frames of the two entrance gates and the
decoration of the entrances and numerous lanterns belong to M. Filevych.
M. Osinchuk in 1942 carried out general conservation and painting of
walls and cleaning of images. During the construction of the complex,
various artists worked in different styles: baroque, rococo, classicism,
but they managed to achieve an organic synthesis of baroque architecture
and sculpture, details of fancy rococo ornamentation of cornices,
balustrades, attics, capitals, sculptures, vases, stairs, porticoes,
subordinating all components elements of integrity similar to the visual
culture of Europe at that time.
The ensemble occupies a peculiar place in the artistic culture of the
Ukrainian lands also because it preserved and now hides within its walls
many notable historical and artistic monuments of different times, in
particular, those that belong to the most important and representative
of its era. However, due to historical circumstances, most of them are
currently outside the temple: in the National Museum named after Andrey
Sheptytskyi, archival funds of the Onufriiv Monastery, the Central State
Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv and the Lviv Scientific Library
named after Vasyl Stefanyk.
Bell
On the belfry of St. George's
Cathedral is the oldest bell in Ukraine, cast, according to the
inscription on it, in 1341.
Crypt
Ever since the Jura
Cathedral became the main seat of the Galician Orthodox, and since 1700
- of the Greek Catholic diocese, bishops have been buried in the crypt,
and since 1808 - metropolitans. The crypt is open to the public.
Prominent figures of the UGCC are buried there, in particular,
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, Patriarch Yosif Slipy, Cardinals
Sylvester Sembratovich, Myroslav Ivan Lyubachivskyi, Bishop Volodymyr
Sterniuk.
During the archaeological excavations conducted by
Yaroslav Pasternak in Halychi na Krylos in 1937, a sarcophagus was found
with the body of the prince, who was identified as Yaroslav Osmomysl. On
the eve of the Second World War, in 1939, for preservation and further
research, his remains were transferred to Lviv in the crypt of the
Cathedral of St. Yura. The remains of the prince were found there for
the second time by the special archaeological commission of the
Scientific Society named after T. Shevchenko on November 14, 1991 in a
plywood box.
Mystagogia
St. George's Cathedral stores:
two
miraculous icons: Terebovlyan and Kyiv;
relics of saints;
a copy
of the Shroud of Turin;
Modern structure
Communities at the
cathedral
Maria's wife;
Confraternity of the Mother of God of
Terebovlya;
Altar wife;
Bible Society;
Brotherhood of Christ
the Lover of Men;
Fraternity "Mothers in Prayer";
Svyatoyura
youth.
Abbots
Father Roman Kravchyk.
The significance
of the Cathedral in the history of Ukraine and the UGCC
After the
imprisonment of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic hierarchy led by
Metropolitan Yosif Slipy and the illegal "Council of the Greek-Catholic
Church on March 8-10, 1946." the cathedral was transferred to the
Orthodox archdiocese under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.
In August 1990, the Cathedral of St. George was returned to the
newly legalized UGCC.
Hryhor Luzhnytskyi in the article "City of
St. Yura":
Whoever wants to know the true Lviv, the Lviv that has
always been Ukrainian, that has always fought for belonging to its
native land, the Lviv that has never given up - let him know the Lviv of
St. Yura.
Lviv St. Yura was always the same: whether it was when
during holidays it was not allowed to lead processions through the
streets of the city, and the Ukrainian citizens of the city sat in
closed houses and cried, or when the youngest Kryloshan of the St.
Market holy water; or when the Moscow gendarmerie was taking
Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky out of his St. George's chamber, or when
a Polish student mob approached the St. George's chamber, shouting: "Mr.
Sheptytsky na lyatyarnen!" — Lviv St. Yura was always the same: aware of
his power and greatness, aware of his tasks and mission, aware of his
speech to God and his people.