The Armenian Cathedral is one of the most valuable religious buildings in Lviv. Its interesting and coherent interior design, including three stained glass windows, has been partially preserved to this day. One of them is an image of St Paul the Apostle, designed by Jan Henryk Rosen.

Armenian Cathedral in Lviv - some history
The Armenian Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lviv. The Armenian Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Dormition of the Virgin Mary) in Lviv is one of the oldest and most interesting monuments of the city, and a unique example of Oriental architecture in this part of Europe. Situated in the centre of Lviv, it adjoins Armenian Street on its southern side; the main entrance to the cathedral is from Krakivska Street.

The present-day appearance of the body and interior of the church are the result of an extension and comprehensive renovation carried out on the initiative of Archbishop Jozef Teodorovich in 1902-1938. With the substantial support of Jan Boholz Antonevich, Armenian, professor of art history at Lviv University, a modernisation programme was developed, an important postulate of which was to preserve and emphasise the ethnic Armenian character of the cathedral. The result of years of work is an interesting and coherent interior design, combining elements of Armenian art with modern - for the time - aesthetics, created by talented and respected artists.

Stained-glass window by Jan Henryk Rosen
Unfortunately, the full furnishings and the entire decoration of the Armenian Cathedral did not survive the Second World War and the Soviet era - this is especially true of the stained glass windows. One of the three we can admire today is a stained glass window with the image of St Paul the Apostle, decorating a small window in the south transept wall, in the oldest part of the church.

The composition of the stained glass window depicts the saint in full form, in a gesture of tearing his robes and showing the Christogram on his chest. In the semicircle above St Paul's head are the figures of the priests of the Old and New Testaments presenting the scroll of scripture, above them floats a dove symbolising the Holy Spirit. On either side of St Paul are visible semi-medallions, the content of which refers to his apostolic letters - the upper left one depicts the Resurrection, the composition in the right one is illegible due to cavities. Below, the left medallion depicts the slave girl Agar (Hagar), the right one the Angel. The lower left medallion shows the Knight of Christ, the right the Victory of the Cross over Satan. At the foot of the figure is the inscription 'St Paul' in Polish and Armenian. The background is made up of glass with a painted floral motif, and the whole composition is enclosed on the sides by two columns held together by an arch decorated with ornament.

The stained-glass window has a very subdued, warm colour scheme and consists of three sections, two rectangular, the highest closed with a sharp arch. Its dimensions are approximately 90 cm wide and 200 cm high.

The author of the stained glass carton was Jan Henryk Rosen, the maker was Pracownia Witraży Artystycznych Białkowski i s-ka from Warsaw. The signatures of the makers can be found on the stained glass along with the date 1928.

Jan Henryk Rosen's works in the Armenian Cathedral
Below the stained glass window, on the south wall of the transept, there is a large wall painting - "The Crucifixion" - made by Jan Henryk Rosen. It depicts Jesus dying on the cross, surrounded by many figures; it is not a canonical scene from the Gospels, but has a symbolic character. Among the people visible there, important for the history of the Church, there are no images of St Paul and St Augustine, which was criticised in a review by Professor Julian Zachariewicz after the work was unveiled. Perhaps the iconography of the chancel's stained glass windows - and it is known that the window opposite had a stained glass window with an image of Augustine - is the result of this criticism.

Lost - found stained glass windows from the Lviv cathedral
In 1930, a Lviv photographer, Ludwik Wieleżyński, made a photographic documentation of the interior of the Armenian Cathedral. Unfortunately, the stained-glass windows from the presbytery are not among those captured, and there is little information about them in the literature. For unexplained reasons, probably during the Second World War, the stained glass windows were removed from the temple windows (except for the skylight of the western dome). In the post-war years, when the cathedral building was used as a warehouse for the Lviv National Museum, the stained glass windows were considered lost.

In January 2001, after the Armenian community reclaimed the cathedral, crates containing fragments of the stained glass windows were found in the basement. They were entrusted to a Lviv stained-glass artist, Anatoly Chobitka, who undertook an inventory of the find. Among the fragmentary stained-glass windows preserved was the one with the image of St Paul.

Restoration of a stained glass window by Jan Henryk Rosen
On the initiative of Barbara Hawajska, an art conservator from Przemyśl, the then Polish Ministry of Culture and Art granted funds for the restoration of the object. The conservation and reconstruction of the stained glass window was carried out in 2001 by Anatolij Czobitko in collaboration with Arkadiusz Maciej, a student of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków.

The stained-glass window "St. Paul" consists of two basic elements: coloured in the mass, properly cut glass and a grid of lead I-beams as a structural element. In terms of technique and technology, the stained glass window from the Armenian Cathedral in Lviv is a classic example of stained glass art. The glazing is decorated with contour paints and patinas and glazes fixed with high temperatures in a glass furnace, the I-beams are soldered with tin, and the whole was probably sealed with putty before being assembled into the window frame. According to the documentation produced after the conservation and partial restoration in 2001, the stained glass window , 'Saint Paul', was preserved in good condition and there were few total losses.