Historical outline

The village is situated on the Zbruch River and its tributary called "Gnivnia", at the foot of the Myodobory Hills, 6 km north of Husiatyn. The oldest available references to Liczkowce date back to the 15th century. However, the oldest historical trace is the famous statue of Svyatovid dating back to the 9th century. It was excavated from the Zbruch River in 1848.

Among the owners of the estate are Zegota from Liczkotki, Piotr from Liczkotki, Jan Sieciech from Horodnica (15th century), Andrzej Siecich (16th century), Kalinowskis (17th century). Most probably, it was during their reign that the castle was built in the village, used until the beginning of the 19th century. Subsequent owners recorded by historical sources include: Kawieccy, Jan Głębocki, Potocki, Stanisław Szczęsny, Jan Szeptycki (18th century), Zaborowski, Dawid Parnes and Selig Hahn (19th century), and from the late 1870s until the end of the interwar period the village was ruled by the Kimmelmans.

Apart from the ruins of the church in Liczkowce, there is also a manor house from the turn of the 19th/20th century in the style of a neo-Gothic villa and obelisks of the Zaborowskis. The 17th-century castle no longer exists. Only some elements of the fortification have been preserved.

Historical sources indicate the presence of a religious object in the village at the height of 1615. It was a wooden church. However, information about the functioning of the parish at that time is not entirely clear. Some sources do not confirm its existence, others speak of the presence of an independent parish in the village. The original building was probably destroyed in the early 17th century, although there are also reports of the parallel existence of an old wooden church and a new brick one as late as the 18th century. However, if a pastoral unit existed here along with the temple, it ceased to function with the destruction of the church.

It was only reconstituted in the 18th century thanks to Archbishop Jan Skarbek, who brought the Jesuits to the village and entrusted them with organising missionary activities, but also with providing pastoral care also for the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages. The new brick church was completed in 1728. The mission flourished successfully, despite a few difficulties along the way, such as the Cossack invasion in 1734. The consecration of the brick church took place in 1838. However, the deanery visitation act of the deanery of jazłowiec noted that the church was in need of "great repair".

As a result of the suppression of the Jesuit order, and the deplorable state of the church, the monks left the parish in 1842. As Andrzej Betlej writes in his study of the building, the lack of archival sources makes it impossible to reconstruct the transformation of the building in the second half of the 19th century.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the C.K. Conservators of Eastern Galicia approved plans for the restoration of the church. However, there is no further information on the progress of the work or even whether it took place at all. During the First World War and also in 1920, the building was damaged. Among other things, the vicarage was completely destroyed. After the end of hostilities, renovation work began. Among other things, the roof was repaired, but the parish priest was still living in the sacristy in 1924. It was not until 1928 that the back of the church was rebuilt, and further renovation work took place in the 1930s.

During the Second World War, frontal operations bypassed Lyubkovce, but unrest due to attacks by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in the area, as well as the new Soviet authorities, led to the Polish population leaving the village in August 1945. Some of the furnishings managed to be taken away, some (pulpit, altars, pews) were cut up and burnt by the new authorities. During the era of USSR domination, the church buildings were turned into a grain warehouse and then into a warehouse for spare parts for the machinery of the local kolkhoz. Since 1997 the building has stood abandoned and fallen into disrepair.

Architecture

The building is located on the top of a hill rising above the river Gnila. The brick and stone-built church consists of a four-bay nave and a rectangular sacristy of similar width adjacent to the body of the church from the west. The altar section faces west. From the sacristy, which is divided into two rooms, one can access the crypts.

The external articulation is carried out with slender Tuscan-like pilasters. They separate the bays and fields of the façade and frame the corners. They are set on a plinth in the façade and on the side elevations of the west bay. They carry sections of the beam frieze and the profiled cornice that encircles the entire building.

From the outside, attention is drawn to the five-pane, single-storey façade, crowned by a triangular gable sitting on a high attic. The entrance opening is framed by a profiled portal, above which is a rectangular plaque with the inscription "AD 1728 DIE 12 MAI", topped by a profiled cornice. In the upper parts there is a panel in the form of an irregular pentagon, which in the upper part takes on a pear-shaped form, truncated from above. In its field are inscriptions and decorative motifs executed in plaster. In the lower one is a pentagonal plaque with the hierogram 'IHS' in a gloria formed of flames surrounded by stars. Above is the inscription 'D.O.M' and the Eye of Providence in a radial gloria. In turn, the upper part of the panel features a cartouche with the Hebrew hierogram Yahweh and above it a triangular plaque with a now illegible motif. Above the panel is a rectangular, bipartite window, and in the fields adjacent to the central window a rectangular window closed with a semicircle. There is a high attic above the crowning cornice and circular windows in the side fields. Above the whole is a triangular gable topped with a metal cross.

The nave and vestry had gabled, tiled roofs. The signature turret, which does not exist today, was clad in sheet metal and topped with a pyramidal cupola enriched with triangular pinnacles, ending in a knob with a cross.

The interior walls were articulated with Tuscan-like pilasters that break at the corners and double at the altar wall. A profiled cornice encircles the entire interior with the exception of the chancel. In the side walls, between the pilasters, segmental closed niches are used.

The vaults in the building, which no longer exist, were lunette vaulted, and cross vaulted and lunette vaulted in the sacristy. The windows used in the building were mainly rectangular and segmental. On the sides there were smaller windows, closed with a semicircle, and a small rectangular window in the sacristy. Today the window openings are mostly bricked up.

The music choir was made of brick, supported by four Tuscan columns. Access to it led through a staircase in the thickness of the facade wall. The vaulting above the choir was cruciform.

The most important elements relating to the church's furnishings, decoration and surrounds included:

• A wooden main altar with paintings of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Our Lady Queen of Poland;
• Wooden side altars with images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Saint Nicholas;
• An eight-voice organ positive purchased in 1932;
• Broken stone wall surrounding the site;
• A three-bay brick bell tower;
• An artificial stone grotto with a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes appearing to Bernadette Soubirous (the statue is now in the local church);
• Gravestone monuments (south-west of the church), including those of Michał Zaborowski, Jan Szeptycki, Tymon Zaborowski.

As Andrzej Betlej writes in his study of the site: "The church in Liczkowce is a rather mediocre and superficial imitation (...) of the Volhynian church, to which it approaches only by the general disposition of the façade. It may be added that the same pattern was repeated in the parish church in Smordwie (near Dubno), which is closer to the Lychkovec church".

Today the building is in a state of disrepair. The roof and vaulting over the church and the roof over the sacristy are missing.

Name: Parish Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Current name: Same as above.

Section: Architecture

Localization: Ukraine, district: Ternopil, locality: Liczkowce

Author: Unknown

Date of construction: 1728 r.

Technical data: Brick and stone object, plastered