Lviv – Armenian Cathedral

There were some limitations on taking photos at this church, so the above one isn’t mine (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lviv-Armenian.jpg).

And nor is this one of the rather glorious interior (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_tonemapped.jpg).

The information board to the front of the church, which is a little tucked away in a courtyard. The church dates to the late fourteenth century although was much modernised in the early twentieth century. It’s a relatively small church internally, although the cloistered area and attached buildings still survive. The building does feel much more of a church than a cathedral, and I’m assuming it only has the latter designation because it’s where the local bishop sat.

Between the seventeenth century and 1945 the church was part of the Armenian Catholic archdiocese. However, when the Soviets took over after the Second World War, they suppressed the church locally and its ministers were arrested and some transported to gulags. The church building was used to hold stolen artworks during the Soviet era, but it was returned to the church in the 1990s.

Since then it has been shared between the Armenian Apostolic and Armenian Catholics, with the building having undergone a major restoration. This process is still ongoing, with the interior of the church now bright with vibrant colours. The murals on the wall are mostly modern and some of them have some quite disturbing scenes on, I wasn’t at all sure about the ghostly ones.

Some parts of the stonework removed during the recent restoration of the church and older gravestones.