The exact beginning of the Roman Catholic parish in Hodovica is not known. Some studies date it back to the 13th century. At the beginning, the central object of the parish was a wooden church, which was burnt down by the Tartars during a raid in 1621. Ten years later, a brick building was erected, which was consecrated only in 1685 by Bishop Jerzy Giedzieński of Lwów. In this form, the church survived until the mid-18th century.

The ruins that exist to this day are the remains of a building erected in 1751-1758, a church representing the late Baroque style. It was founded by the parish priest of the neighbouring Navarra, Father Szczepan Mikulski, a Lvov canon. The design was the responsibility of the then renowned architect Bernard Meretyn. The building probably served as a model for a number of buildings located in various places. These included churches in Busk, Lopatyń, Kołomyja, Rawa Ruska and probably Buczacz.

Bernard Meretyn is also responsible for the interior design concept. However, he collaborated with eminent artists, such as Jan Jerzy Pinzel and Maciej Polejowski (sculptural decoration), Aleksander Roliński (wall polychrome, which has survived to this day in its original location).

The consecration of the building took place in 1774. In 1856, a local resident donated a woodcut of Our Lady of Sorrows bought in Moravia to the church. From this point on, the church began to become an increasingly popular Marian pilgrimage site. One of them was the famous painter Artur Grottger, who later immortalised the event in his painting "Pilgrimage to Hodovica". In 1932, the coronation of the woodcut by Bishop Bolesław Twardowski took place. Displaced Poles took the holy image with them in 1946. At present, it is kept in the St Augustine's Church in Wrocław.

Sources vary as to what happened between the end of the Second World War and the fateful fire in 1974. It is said that for some time after the expulsion of the Polish population there was a Greek-Catholic parish here, which the Soviets also liquidated and turned into a grain warehouse in the church. In varying accounts, however, the year 1961, when the communists closed the church, is the most common. Four years later, the majority of the artworks in it were acquired by the Lviv Picture Gallery. The collection is now housed in the Jan Jerzy Pinzel Museum, which was also founded in Lviv in 1996.

A fire broke out in 1974, turning the church into a ruin similar to its present condition. The roof and most of the vaults burn. Intentional arson is suspected.

Architecture

The building is situated on the north-western edge of the village above a picturesque pond. The chancel was oriented to the west. The church was traditionally built on a cruciform plan. It is a single-nave building with a short transept in the middle and a rectangularly closed presbytery with a vestry behind it, whose almost mirror image on the opposite side is a similarly sized porch. The church, in its present state, is devoid of a roof and most of its vaults. Interestingly, the polychrome in the lower parts of the walls has been preserved in relatively good condition.

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Before the coronavirus pandemic and before the war in Ukraine, there was a strong local initiative fuelled by local residents who wanted to rebuild the church. However, due to the situation, the movement has slowed down. This does not change the fact that masses are sometimes held in the ruins of the church, and the desire to save the building, a rare example of Western Baroque in that area, has not died.