The building is a family mausoleum erected in 1887 after the death of its founder, Probus Włodzimierz Barczewski. The monumental three-storey chapel rises by the main avenue of the Lychakiv cemetery.

The solid Byzantine-style building lost a large section of its dome during the Second World War, which has not yet been repaired. The damage caused the gradual degradation of the metal structure and the stone blocks that make up the chapel.

Extensive construction and conservation work to revitalise the entire chapel began in 2020.

Executor: Monument Service Sp. z o.o.

Realisation of the construction and architectural design by arch. Dorota Śliwińska

In 2021, work on the exterior of the chapel was completed and scaffolding removed. Inside the building, however, conservation work (gluing marble slabs to the substrate) and restoration work (filling a cavity in the central part of the marble floor) are ongoing.

A proposal to apply the method of restoration - anastylosis - developed and designed by a team of conservators to the chapel: Yuri Cherniavsky, Anna Kudzię and Marcin Kozarzewski, was presented at the Fifth International Congress "The state of research on the multicultural heritage of the former Republic of Poland" in Bialystok (29.09-1.10.2021).

Thanks to expert opinions and consultations with experts (including Michał Wardzyński, Marcin Zgliński), it was possible to recognise the types of stone used in the construction of the altarpiece. However, in order to recognise the form of the altarpiece, it was necessary to refer to materials relating to the Sacre Coeur temple under construction in Paris at the time. Both in the designs of arch. Both the designs of architect Władysław Halicki, who designed the Barczewski Chapel and the ciborium in the Church of the Heart of Jesus at the Franciscan Convent in Lwów, and the work of sculptor Leopold Schimser, who was responsible for the construction of the building, contain analogies to the French temple. Wieniaczysława, Probus Barczewski's sister and testamentary, also resided in the French capital.

A separate issue is the conservation and restoration of the stained glass windows commissioned by L. Schimser. Three groups can be distinguished: the windows of the tambour of the dome, the windows of the apse visible behind the altar and the two transept windows, i.e. lateral to the altar. For the above three groups, three assumptions were decided upon, resulting from the state of comparative and iconographic research and the state of preservation (amount of original material) of the glazing.

The upper windows, illuminating the dome, had fragments that allowed the reproduction of the two compositional arrangements originally used, alternating in the windows of the tambour. Reconstructed stained glass will be installed in this section and the original glass will be deposited in the chapel. The windows of the apse were preserved in such a fragmentary way as to prevent a full reconstruction. The original elements, fused and protected with protective glazing, will be displayed in the windows. The remaining glazing will be restored schematically without repainting with enamel.

The glazing of the transept windows will be created using the fusing method of stained glass with a marked geometric pattern, visible in fragments.

The work will be completed in December 2021.

Executor: Monument Service Sp. z o.o., project manager.

Conservation works carried out in 2020-2021, Conservation Programme, Polonica Institute