Żółkiew was founded at the end of the 16th century by Hetman and Great Crown Chancellor Stanisław Żółkiewski. When widowed crown chamberlain Jakub Sobieski, coat-of-arms Janina, married Teofila Daniłowiczówna, granddaughter of the famous hetman, daughter of the Ruthenian voivode Jan Daniłowicz and Zofia of Żółkiewski, Żółkiew became a part of the Sobieski estate.

Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Dominican Monastery in Ż ółkiew
. Teofila of Danilovichs Sobieska, the mother of the future King John III, donated the wooden cemetery chapel of the Virgin Mary and a square on the side of the Lviv Suburb in Zhovkva to the Russian Province of the Order of Preachers of St. Jack. In 1653, she provided the plans and founded the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with a Dominican monastery, later known as the "Conventus Regalis".

The foundation was established in memory of the eldest son of Teofila and Jakub Sobieski, Krasnostaw starost Marek Sobieski, executed after the Battle of Batohem in 1652 on the orders of Bohdan Khmelnytsky. His corpse, bought by his mother, was temporarily laid to rest in the collegiate church in Zhovkva. In September 1655, Marek Sobieski's remains were transferred to the Dominican church founded by Teofila Sobieska and placed in the crypt under the altar of the Chapel of St Dominic.

Teofila Sobieska died in Żółkwi in 1661. Her younger son Jan held two funerals for her. The first, in accordance with his mother's wishes, was modest. The second, a grand one, took place in February 1662 in the Dominican church in Zhovkva.

After being destroyed by fire, the church was rebuilt in 1677 through the efforts of Prior Jan Humiecki. The construction work in the 1680s and 1690s was financed by King John III (possibly with the participation of the royal architect Piotr Beber). It was then that one of the most famous royal sculptors, Andrzej (Andreas) Schlueter, was employed to work on the tombstones of Teofila and Marek Sobieski.

The church was again damaged by fires in 1718, 1739, 1754 and 1833. Their effects were eliminated thanks to generous donations from the owners of Zhovkva and the efforts of subsequent priories. The Zhovkva monastery belonged to the Lvov counter-province of the Russian Province of the Order of Preachers of St. Jack, and from 1864 to the Galician Province. After the first partition of Poland, the Dominican monastery was earmarked for suppression, which, however, was stopped by a decree of Emperor Joseph II in 1799, thanks to the efforts of Prior Piotr Piramowicz.