Podhorce is known above all for its magnificent palace and garden establishment in the palazzo in fortezza type (having defensive features), which was built in the years 1637-1640 by Great Crown Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski. As an outstanding work of architecture, the castle was described by Polish and foreign travellers visiting Podhorce in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in the 19th century it gained an almost legendary status in the consciousness of Poles due to its artistically extremely valuable furnishings and historical mementos collected by successive generations of its owners.

Castle church
In the 18th century the then owner of Podhorce, Great Hetman of the Crown Wacław Piotr Rzewuski, decided to incorporate a church into the residence-park complex. The magnate was personally involved in the design of the new building, which was prepared for him by an unknown architect, Karol Romanus. The design, signed "C. Romanus" was kept in the castle until 1939. It is known from archive documents that Johann Christian Seydel, gardener of Podhoretz, and Krystian Dahlke, major general of the Crown army, participated in the construction of the temple. Art historians also indicate that the author of the design for the St Joseph's Church may also have been Jean Lucas de Toux de Salverte, teacher of the Hetman's sons, painter, military engineer and freemason, who lived in the Podhorce castle until 1751.

The architecture of the church and its patterns
The castle church, in the form of a high rotunda covered with a cupola and preceded by a monumental eight-column portico, is situated at the end of a tree-lined avenue leading to the castle. This created a picturesque axial arrangement based on the line park - fortified palace - church. It is worth noting the colonnaded portico topped with sculptures and a triangular pediment, considered the first example of Classicist architecture in Polish sacral architecture. In this way, it preceded by 40 years similar works designed by Piotr Aigner for Warsaw, Puławy and Żyrzyna, and referring to the Roman Pantheon.

For a long time there have been attempts to define the artistic models on which the church in Podhorce was based. Art historians pointed to the Superga church in Turin by Filippo Juvara and the classicising trend of Roman architecture of the 1830s. They emphasised that the portico in Podhorce refers to the façade of the Basilica of St John Lateran. The monumental form of the temple is also reminiscent of the classicising architecture of the French Baroque. Such patterns should not come as a surprise, as Hetman Wacław Rzewuski was a well-known admirer of French art. On the other hand, he is considered by literary historians to be the father of Polish Enlightenment classicist poetry, in which he referred to native Renaissance traditions and more recent French models.

Church decoration and its artists
In addition to his literary inclinations, Rzewuski was also an outstanding patron of the arts. Szymon Czechowicz (1689-1775), the most outstanding Polish painter of the 18th century, educated in Rome, lived in the castle in Podhorce for several years. He prepared for Rzewuski a series of several dozen paintings decorating the palace interiors (including the famous Green Room) and produced a large-format painting of the Holy Family for the main altar in the castle church. The model for this work was an engraving by Johann Jacob Frey from 1748, based on a painting by the Roman painter Sebastiano Conca. Chekhovich's canvas occupied the upper part of the altar niche ending in a semicircle.

The interior of the church was covered with an illusionist polychromy made in the main parts by the painters Lukasz Smuglewicz (1709-1780) and his son Antoni (1740-1810). The work was completed in 1763. The frescoes, which have been preserved to this day, are of a high artistic class, the colours are bright and vivid, with a predominance of greens and pinks. The illusionistic architectural elements are marbled and the details are gilded. In addition to the painted architecture, the representations of the four cardinal virtues painted above the windows stand out: Fortitude, Prudence, Justice and Temperance, and medallions supported by putti with busts of St Joseph and St Anne.

Lukasz Smuglewicz is supposed to have studied painting first with Johann Samuel Mock, a Saxon artist active in Warsaw, and after his death with Szymon Czechowicz, with whom he maintained close social contacts. It is known that for the decoration of the church in Podhorce the artist was brought from Warsaw by Czechowicz himself.

Marcin Twardowski, a sculptor and carpenter from Mikuliniec, was responsible for the furnishings and interior design elements, while the doors to the church were made by Ambroży Pniowski, a carpenter from Olesko.

In 1762 Waclaw Rzewuski signed a contract with the famous Lvov sculptor Sebastian Fesinger (d. after 1770) for the construction of six stone figures for the church façade. Unfortunately, it was not specified at the time who they were to depict. The founder requested that Fesinger "stick to the abrasion, not bend the statues and that as far as possible they should all be of equal height". This recommendation corresponds well with the magnate's classicising aesthetic tastes. The attic of the columnar portico now features seven stone statues representing, from left, St Archangel Raphael, St Peter, an unidentified saint (sometimes identified as the Virgin Mary), St Joseph, St Anne with little Mary, St Wenceslas and St Onufry. Originally there was a damaged statue of St Ignatius Loyola between the statue of the Archangel and St Peter. A certain identification of Fesinger's works is not possible. The most common indication is that he made all the sculptures except the statue of St Joseph and St Ignatius. These are very good examples of so-called Lvov rococo sculpture.

Post-war fate of the Podhoretsk church
. The church was severely damaged during the Second World War. In 1944, as a result of artillery shelling, the covering of the dome and one of the statues on the façade were damaged, and the church was ransacked by Soviet soldiers. During this action, among other things, the Chekhovich painting in the altar was destroyed and temporarily replaced by a canvas with St Anthony transferred from the castle. The church was then closed and the last parish priest left Podhorce in August 1945. Some of the furnishings were taken away by displaced parishioners, some went to a church in Chmielenie in Silesia, and then dispersed.

Since 1991, the former parish church has been managed by the Lviv Art Gallery. At that time, renovation work began. In mid-2013, the building was handed over to the Greek-Catholic Church and a church dedicated to Blessed Mykola Czarnecki and the New Martyrs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was established. In 2021-2022, with funds from the state programme "Great Conservation", emergency work was carried out on the church, including changing the external plasterwork, replacing the roofing and the entrance stairs.