The text mentions the presence of the Jesuits in Zhytomyr, and the question of the church they left behind. This monastery was turned into a prison in 1838 and bought by Jankiel Tarnopolski, and also by Stanislaw Kaszperowski and Maryanna of Porcianki, who also have rights to this church. (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1865, T:11, p. 68., after: Digital Library of the University of Lodz).

A modernised reading of the text

Former Jesuit church in Zhytomyr.

A 1768 Sejm resolution approved the foundation of Kaźmirz Stecki, Kyiv castellan, (remaining in the 1726 Sejm recession), of a Jesuit mission in Zhytomyr, together with a school. Local sources do not give us any information about the affairs of the congregation and the names of its members.

The sermons, usually delivered at the opening of churches and published in print, must have been preserved somewhere. However, it is reasonable to assume that the founder and the Jesuits, without waiting for the Sejm's approval, which was granted only five years before the congregation was suspended in 1773, must have erected the church and monastery, and perhaps even opened the monastery and school de facto before they were recognised de jure by the Sejm. The foundation of the other buildings, needing more preparation and time, confirms us in this supposition.

Nevertheless, we know that the scholastic establishment, founded by the Jesuits, gave rise to the former secular school and then to today's gymnasium. For a long time after the abolition of the congregation, the church stood empty, and the courtyard of the unguarded edifice was slowly filled with unshaped houses, which are gradually disappearing today, with the new arrangement of the town. The monastery, formerly used as a government storehouse, was turned into a prison in 1838 and is still in use today. Finally, in January 1838, through a public auction, the church building was bought by an Israelite, Jankiel Tarnopolski, for the price of 1,116 golden pennies 20, with the obligation to remove it and clear away the debris.

However, a merchant and resident of Zhytomyr, Stanislav Kashperovsky, together with his wife Maryanna, née Porcianka, acquired the rights to the church in question from Tarnopolsky for a much higher price of 13 333 golden groschen 10, by virtue of an assignment certified in the files of the former Zhytomyr magistrate on 22 February 1838, with the intention of preserving the church in its former location. However, the pious intention of the Kaszperowski couple did not come to fruition and the demolished wall of the church provided excellent material for several tenement houses they built.

The view of the church enclosed here shows it in the state it was in in 1838, after Tarnopolsky had already removed the high wooden steeple with the cross.