Historical outline
Barash is located about 7 km from Buchach. In the past it was also called "Barash" or "Barash the Great", although nowadays it is a rather intimate administrative unit. Among the owners of the village, the sources mention: Awdańcy Buczacki, Hrabowieccy, Jazłowieckie, Potocki, Szawłowski, Świderscy. In the 17th century, Barysz was afflicted by numerous disasters, including Turkish-Tartar and Cossack invasions.

A Roman-Catholic parish was probably founded here in the 16th century. For some time, under the influence of Reformation turbulences, the local temple was in the hands of Protestants. However, the previous state of affairs was restored fairly quickly, renewing the foundation and consecrating the building again. At the end of the 19th century, the Baryskiy parish district included such villages as Barysz, Jezierzany, Porchowa, Pużniki, Weleśniów, Wierzbiatyn, Zalesie, Zręby and Zubrzec. According to sources, numerous Catholic associations were active at the parish at that time, and at the height of 1802 there was a hospital and a school attached to the parish.

The church in question began to be built at the beginning of the 19th century with the foundation of Kajetan Potocki. Earlier there had been religious buildings in the village, but exact information about them is not fully known. They probably suffered during the troubled 17th century. When discussing the present shape of the building, it is worth noting two important phases of its construction. The first took place in the aforementioned 19th century, more specifically between 1800 and 1827, when the 'basic' version of the building was erected. The second phase was an extension between 1900 and 1906, when the side aisles, chancel and chapels were added. It was probably also at this time that the mausoleum of the Farurey-Szawlowski family was arranged in the temple. The First World War brought significant damage, but the building was repaired in the interwar period. The year 1930 was when the church was repaired from the inside, and 1934 from the outside.

As Rafał Quirini-Popławski writes in his study of the building, the time of the Second World War was tragic for the inhabitants of Barysh. Actions by Ukrainian nationalists between 1939 and 1945 resulted in the deaths of 202 local Poles. After these events, and especially after their accumulation in 1945, most of the surviving Poles fled to Buczacz. The then parish priest, Father Jozef Mroz, left in the last transport to Poland on 23 September 1945, taking some of the church equipment with him. A year later the USSR authorities turned the church into a kolkhoz warehouse. In 1989, the building was taken over by the Greek Catholic Church and was soon renovated. Today, the former vicarage serves as a health centre and the church is dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord.

Architecture
The building lies in the centre of the village. It is oriented, i.e. facing towards the conventional east, by implication Jerusalem. It was built of stone and brick and plastered. The body of the church has five bays, three naves and a hall configuration. A couple of neo-Gothic chapels are worth noting. These, among others, were added when the building was modernised in the early 20th century. They form a pseudo-transept in the mass. The presbytery itself is single-span and triangularly closed. Together with the chapels, it was raised by one step in relation to the main part. Under the northern chapel is the Farurej-Szawlowski burial crypt accessible from the outside. On the other side of the nave part there is a porch with an open music choir above (in the form of a balcony). It is lighted by a rectangular window closed with a semicircle.

The exterior elevations are built on a plinth and closed at the top with moulded cornices, which occur at different heights in different parts. The windows are in profiled frames. The façade is single-axis, single-storey and closed with an interesting gable of complex design. In the lower part it is formed by sections of diagonal slopes, and above this is a two-zone attic with a semicircular bulge on the axis. The two zones contain rectangular niches with sculptures of St Michael the Archangel and Our Lady Immaculate. The attic is topped with a stone cross. Stone vases are placed on the sides.

Almost all the roofs are covered with sheet metal. A gable roof is used over the body and presbytery, which changes to a triple-pitched roof at the close of the altar area. A similar arrangement is found over the chapels. The roof over the sacristy, on the other hand, is multi-pitched. In addition, there is a gabled roof over the entrance to the south chapel. The latter two are covered with tiles. The turret for the signature tower is covered with sheet metal. It is surmounted by an onion-shaped cupola topped by a knop with a decorative iron cross.

The naves are separated by Tuscan columns on high pedestals supporting low segmented arcades. Above them, there is a beam that also runs across the west wall of the nave and the side walls of the chancel. There they are supported by lisens separating the chancel bay from the nave and apse.

The chapels communicate with the nave through semicircular arcades supported by sections of moulded cornice. The articulation in the chapels was carried out by Tuscan semi-columns with cannelled shafts.

The nave and chancel use a cradle vault, while the chapels use a cross-ribbed vault (transitioning to an umbrella vault). The side aisles and sacristy, on the other hand, are covered by ceilings. Most of the windows in the building are rectangular and closed with a semicircle (body, presbytery), rectangular and closed with a pointed arch (chapels).

The most important elements related to the furnishings and surroundings of the church include:

• Neo-Baroque main altar dating from the early 20th century;
• Side altar with paintings "Our Lady of the Rosary" in the field and "Saint Anthony of Padua" in the finial;
• Side altar with the sculpture "Christ Crucified" and the painting "Sacred Heart of Jesus" (oil on canvas);
• Altar in the northern chapel (Farurej-Szawlowski foundation), dating to the early 20th century;
• Stone-built bell tower "in the form of a rectangular prism, with three bell niches";
• Stone sculptures, located in the church grounds, including 'Our Lady with Child' and 'Our Lady Immaculate'.