The Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Dominican Fathers in Belz - a Roman Catholic monastery of the Dominican order located in Belz, functioning until 1944, when it was destroyed as a result of the Red Army's attack on the town.

History
The exact date when the Dominican Order was brought to Belz is a matter of dispute among historians. The earliest mention in the sources comes from 1386, so it is believed that the Dominicans must have arrived in Belz somewhat earlier. The monastery was endowed by a privilege granted by Siemowit, Duke of Masovia, in 1394; subsequent acts were issued by the kings of Poland, including Sigismund I the Old, Sigismund Augustus and Stefan Batory, as well as by the local gentry making generous bequests.

The first church was built before 1394 and was located on the outskirts of the town. Another complex of a wooden church and monastery was built in 1401 in the centre of Belz, south-west of the market square. This temple probably succumbed to the great fire that struck the town in 1473, or to the devastating Tartar invasions in 1499 and 1502. Nineteenth-century literature records an unverifiable claim that the Dominican church was rebuilt in 1556 with the foundation of an unknown Bodzanta. During the following century, it too was destroyed, as sources say that the new temple was built before February 1671.

During the invasion of Belz by Swedish troops during the Northern War in 1704, the bell tower was burnt down, and on 15 February 1712 the church was robbed by troops of August II supporters who were stationed in Zhovkva.

By 1752, a new brick church and Dominican monastery were already standing. Its history until the end of the 18th century is very poorly documented in archival sources. It is known that in 1781 the Lviv woodcarver Franciszek Wolanski and the Lviv carpenter Jozef Boczarski worked on the pulpit and two altars, and that before 1788, as a result of a fire, the vaulting collapsed and the walls were damaged, and the damage was provisionally repaired. Little can be said about the works of Wolański and Boczarski, as they are known only from single archival photographs depicting the interiors of the Bełz church, and additionally show their condition already after the renovation at the end of the 19th century. The sculptural work of Franciszek Wolański has not been analysed by art historians so far, and little is known about him at all.

In 1788, the Austrians abolished the Dominican church and also closed the wooden parish church of St. Nicholas, after which the parish was transferred to the Dominican church. A few years later, the Dominican church in Belz was also cancelled and some items were moved to the Dominican church. The premises of the monastery were adapted into a vicarage.

The condition of the church in the 19th century was not good, despite repairs carried out with the local parish priest's money. In 1858, the wooden, decayed ceiling collapsed. Major repairs were carried out between 1870 and 1884, when the church furnishings were renewed, and it was probably at this time that the neo-Baroque polychrome interior was made. The church suffered damage during the First World War and the Russian army's assault on the city, but the extent of the damage is unknown. In the interwar period the Dominican monastery was used as a municipal office, and in 1936 the Lviv Conservancy Office approved a project for a polychrome of the church interior prepared by the architect Wincenty Witold Rawski, an engineer. Its execution most probably never took place.

During World War II, the Red Army captured Belz and completely destroyed the city. The former Dominican buildings were also damaged: the southern and western wings of the monastery were destroyed, as was the church, which was described as mined in the dean's visitation records of 1948. Services were held in the "Na Zameczku" church and in the former Dominican Sisters' church. On the night of 24-25 March 1944, Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) gangs attacked Belz, robbed and burnt the church, the presbytery and the houses of the inhabitants; more than a hundred Poles were murdered.

After the boundary correction in 1951, the ruins of the wings of the former Dominican monastery were demolished and used as building material, and most of the church's perimeter walls were also dismantled. Today, only the chancel apse with two buttresses and the southern fragment of the eastern chancel wall, the lower part of the buttress at the demolished northern fragment of the eastern chancel wall, the north-east corner of the nave body bay with corner and front buttresses and a fragment of the north-west corner of the nave body bay with front buttress have survived. The north wing of the monastery and the belfry-gate are now preserved in good condition after a major renovation in 2005-2007. The preserved part of the former monastery building is currently used by the City Council of Belz.

Architecture and paintings of the church
. The church was located south-west of the market square in Belza, had a long chancel ending in an apse and facing south. The body was a three-nave, two-bay structure, resembling a square in plan. The original vaulted interior was replaced by a wooden ceiling. The façade was divided by buttresses into three sections. The church was covered by a gable roof and there was a small bell turret at the junction of the body and the chancel.

The interior polychrome of the church was neo-Baroque, consisting of painted architectural divisions and floral decoration, vases and festoons. The arcade of the rainbow arch was decorated with painted coffers with floral decoration in the centre.

A monastery with three wings on a U-shaped plan, walled in from the west to the church building. The northern wing on the street had a tall quadrilateral tower in the middle.

In the third storey of the tower, referred to in the sources as the scriptorium, rococo paintings were discovered, probably dating from the 3rd quarter of the 18th century. The illusionistically painted niches contain rocaille ornaments, representations of unidentified Dominican saints and the Dove of the Holy Spirit. The paintings were restored between 2004 and 2007.