The construction of the Church of Our Lady of the Dawn Gate was the most important national-patriotic creation of interwar Lviv. The erection of the monumental mass, as it was then called, "the religious-national bastion of Lviv's clerical fortifications" on the slope of a lofty hill made the church the dominant feature of this part of the city.

The reborn Poland was supposed to be a nationally homogeneous state, even though numerous other ethnic groups lived there and various religions coexisted. Interwar Lviv was the capital of three Catholic archdioceses: Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Armenian Catholic. In this situation, sacred buildings began to spring up in various corners of Lviv. Due to their monumental and cultic character, they became a kind of foci of the city's various national identities. Roman Catholic churches were the most numerous group of churches. In the course of the city's growth and the implementation of the 'Greater Lviv' project, which included the incorporation of suburban communities - there was an urgent need to build churches for them. There was a particular need for a new church and a pastoral centre in Upper Lychakiv.

In line with the First Sejm of the Second Polish Republic, which decided to build the monumental Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw as a votive offering for the deliverance of the Polish nation from one and a half centuries of slavery, local initiatives were taken to build votive churches throughout the country. Following the example of the capital, construction was initiated in Lviv - a symbol of Lviv's gratitude for its return to the bosom of its reborn homeland after the partitioned captivity, after the countless sacrifices made in the battles of 1918 -1920.

The main initiator and founder of the construction of the Church of Our Lady of the Dawn Gate in Lviv was the then Metropolitan of Lviv, Archbishop Bolesław Twardowski. The initiative was taken up by the city authorities and residents. As early as 1927 the municipality of Lviv, by a resolution of the City Council, transferred "to the ownership of the future church", land for the construction of a temple on the slope of a hill sloping towards the centre, in the vicinity of the former city turnpike and Lychakivskyi Park (formerly Bartosz Glowacki Park) at 175 Lychakivska Street. The donation to the church side took place in November 1928. The following year, a Social Committee for the construction of a church in Upper Lychakiv was established to oversee the collection of money and the preparation of appropriate documentation. In 1929, an architectural competition for the design of the church was held. Lviv architect and Lviv Polytechnic Professor Tadeusz Obminski (1874 -1932) set the terms of the competition. The competition was to be a closed one, with the participation of "several well-known architects". Participating in the competition were Wawrzyniec Dayczak (1882 -1968), Witold Minkiewicz (1880-1961) and Tadeusz Obmiński from Lviv, Franciszek Mączyński (1874-1947) and Adolf Szyszko-Bohusz (1883-1948) from Krakow, and Oskar Sosnowski (1880-1939) from Warsaw. Of all the works, Szyszko-Bohusz's design, "maintained in the spirit of radical modernism", received the highest marks, but was not accepted for realisation. Instead, the project prepared in several stages in 1930-1931 by a Lviv resident, Tadeusz Obmiński, was realised. It was a project combining the spirit of early Christianity with modern detailing.

The sources of inspiration for the new sacred architecture of the Second Republic were both the styles of past eras associated with Polish history and modern shapes symbolising the modernising role of the young state. Increasingly, a trend associated with the gradual adoption of modernist forms could be observed in sacred architecture.

The Lychakiv Church was given the classical form of an early Christian basilica with Renaissance elements on the façade. A periphery of Renaissance forms can be seen in the rhythm of windows on the front and side elevations. A good combination of classical and modernist elements in this project is the campanile that rises above the façade. On the one hand, the campanile is an example of Renaissance architecture; on the other, the simplified geometric shapes indicate a modernist approach.

Construction began in the summer of 1931. The architect of the church, Tadeusz Obmiński, died a year later. It was decided to entrust the construction to another contestant, the Lviv architect Vavrzyniec Dayczak. Construction supervision was carried out by engineer Stefan Neuhoff. In 1932, the walls of the church were to be pulled up to the roof and a reinforced concrete ceiling laid to cover the interior of the church - one large nave of wall-and-pillar construction with a separate apse. The monumental coffered ceiling contrasts with the slender, romanesque columns. The year 1934 saw the completion of the building work and interior decoration. The designs for the main altar, the wooden confessionals and the marble pulpit supported by six columns were made by the lead architect, Wawrzyniec Dayczak. On the day of the church's consecration on 7 October 1934, the church was taken over by the Congregation of Salesian Fathers.

From the very beginning, the plan was to create an educational institution at the church to serve the city's Catholic population. The condition for handing over the Marian shrine to the Salesians was the construction of an educational institution for poor youth. Due to the high cost of the entire project and constant financial shortages, the idea was not immediately realised. Work resumed in preparation for the 1938 celebrations - the year of the twentieth anniversary of Lviv's defence. At the time, a design for a school was created by the young Lviv architect Julian Duchowicz, which was to be a modernist continuation of the church design, with an addition on the side of the bell tower. Construction began just before the start of the Second World War and was immediately interrupted.

Today (since 1992) it is the Church of the Pokrovna Mother of God of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.