After the Second World War, the former Jesuit church was turned into a book depository for books, including those from the Ossolineum, and the unprotected and unmaintained interior was severely damaged. The extremely valuable Baroque paintings by Franciszek and Sebastian Eckstein, executed in 1740-1743, were destroyed, among other things, due to the strong salinity of the church walls. In 2011, the church was restored to worship as a Greek Catholic garrison church.

Since 2015, work has been underway to restore the Eckstein frescoes to their former glory. This is possible thanks to the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the authorial method of conservation of the paintings, developed by Dr Paweł Boliński of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and successfully applied by a team of Polish-Ukrainian conservators. By 2018, the conservation of 360 m2 of frescoes in the church's chancel had been successfully carried out.

Work carried out in 2018.
In 2018, the Polonika Institute joined the work funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, which is being carried out on the vault of the church's nave.

Executor: Paweł Boliński Artem Renovo

Work being carried out in 2019.
In 2019, almost full technical conservation of the vault paintings of the nave (900 m2) was carried out. The repainting was removed and the plasterwork was desalted, the original paint layer was fixed, a sub-plaster injection was performed to consolidate the plasterwork, and missing mortar layers were completed. This condition made it possible to expose the original painting and colouring of the mural, and to protect and consolidate them.

Executor: Paweł Boliński Artem Renovo

Work carried out in 2020
Technical conservation of the Eckstein fresco on the vault of the nave was completed in 2020.

The painting was also subjected to aesthetic conservation, during which, among other things, restorations of cavities, whitewash and retouches were carried out. Defects in the paint layer were also repaired, along with large parts of the restoration, to give the frescoes the character of an illusionist painting again.

Executor: Paweł Boliński Artem Renovo

Work to be carried out in 2021

In 2021, the Polonica Institute is continuing work on the aesthetic conservation of the paintings. Their aim is to restore the illusionistic character of the paintings by appropriately performing retouches in the areas of losses of the paint layer and making reconstructions of missing fragments of the composition. The retouches are made using a graphic code (scoring) analogous to the method used in the work in the church's presbytery. The conservation commission, as a result of the analysis of the material presented, has also determined that the missing virtue on the south wall, between the window lutettes, is Fortitudo (Fortitude). Due to the lack of sufficient iconographic material regarding the appearance of the representation, the executor proposed his own proposal, which is analogous to the virtues executed by Eckstein in other objects. The restoration of the Fortitudo virtue is the final stage and closure of the entire composition of the illusionist painting. Previously, the architectural elements also required full restoration.

Executor: Artem Renovo Paweł Boliński

Conservation work carried out between 2018 and 2021, Conservation Programme, Polonica Institutes