St. Lawrence Collegiate Church in Zhovkva - history
The Church of St. Lawrence of the Cross in Zhovkva. Queen of Heaven and Saints Lawrence the Deacon and Martyr Stanislaus the Bishop in Zhovkva was first built as a parish church, then as a collegiate church. It was founded by Hetman Stanislaw Żółkiewski and erected in 1606-1618. It was included in the urban layout of the fortified ideal town, realised in accordance with the urbanistic ideas of the Renaissance. The temple was especially cared for by the hetman's great-grandson, King Jan III of the Sobieski family, during whose reign it became the family mausoleum and the venue for many important state ceremonies. Numerous mementoes of the knightly past were collected in the temple in Zhovkva and it was named the Pantheon of Polish Arms. Before 1939, it was considered one of the three most important temples of the Republic.

The design of the temple, drawn up before 1606, is attributed to Paweł Szczęśliwy. After his death in 1610, the work was probably carried out by the Lvov architects Ambroży Przychylny (d.1641) and Pavel Romany (d.1618) and was generally completed by 1618. The resulting church had a Latin-cross ground plan and was topped with a magnificent cupola. A statue of St Michael the Archangel stood on top of the façade (the statue of St Lawrence on top of the transept has not survived). The frieze surrounding the church, designed by the Hetman himself, is decorated with panoplies, bas-reliefs of Saints George and Martin, mounted hussars and archers, wounded soldiers, and armed warriors.

The monuments of Hetman Żółkiewski and his son Jan, with the famous inscription taken from the Aeneid, "Exoriare aliquis nostrum," have survived to this day, although not without damage, occupying almost the entire presbytery, made of red marble.Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor" ("Let an avenger be born from our bones") and the monument to Regina of Herburt and Zofia Danilowiczowa, the Hetman's wife and daughter, placed on the opposite side.

In the church - the ancestral mausoleum of the Żółkiewski and Sobieski families - at the entrance to the presbytery there is a place for alabaster tombstones of Jakub Sobieski - the king's father, and Stanisław Daniłowicz made by Andrzej Schlueter.

A special place in the interior of the temple was occupied by four large battle paintings. The first of these was executed at the behest of Hetman Żółkiewski, probably by the Lviv painter Szymon Boguszewicz (ca. 1620), and depicts the victorious Battle of Klushino. Three further works are already the foundation of King John III. The painting of the Battle of Chocim was created with the contribution of Gdańsk painter Andrzej Stech (ca.1679), while the Battle of Vienna and the Battle of Parkany were painted in 1693-95 by Martin Altomonte. This way of decorating the sacral interior was something completely new, not previously seen in the churches of the Republic.

After the death of Jan III, Zhovkva remained in the hands of the family, but the times of its greatest prosperity had already passed for it. It was not until the second half of the 19th century that the former collegiate and, from Austrian times, parish church was remembered. Between 1862 and 1867, a restoration project was carried out on the neglected, but still considered one of the most important churches of the former Republic. During the works, the remains of princes Konstanty and Jakub Sobieski were found and ceremonially buried in 1862. During the next stage of restoration works in 1900-1908, the remains of Hetman Żółkiewski and his family were buried in new sarcophagi. Another renovation of the church was carried out in 1928, and in 1933 the anniversary of the victorious Battle of Vienna was solemnly celebrated in Zhovkva parish church.

After World War II, Zhovkva became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Some of the furnishings and archival materials survived because they were taken away by the provost and prior of the Zhovkva Dominicans in 1946. Today, scattered, they can be found in the churches of Krakow, Belzec, Lubaczow, Tarnów and in the archives of Warsaw. From 1946 to 1989, the Zhovkva church remained closed for worship and served as a warehouse. As a result of the decision of the Soviet authorities, the church was devastated and most of its valuable equipment was destroyed or dispersed.

Repair and conservation works
On 28 October 1989 the church was handed over to the community of believers and consecrated by Father Rafał Władysław Kiernicki. Cleaning of the church and repair and conservation work began.

In the years 1990-1992 the Polish Culture Foundation was involved in the work, carrying out, among other things, repairs and part of the work to replace the roof truss. The Polish Army and the City Council of Cracow financed the purchase of copper sheets for the roofing. In 1991, the parish church in Zhovkva was enriched with a bell cast in the workshop of Jan Felczyński in Przemyśl, funded by Adam Ważny, and two years later a bell was added, donated by former Zhovkva residents.

The painting of Our Lady of the Rosary, known as the Lady of Zhovkva, which was extremely important to the inhabitants of Zhovkva, was located in the Dominican church (now the Greek Catholic church of St. Josaphat) until 1946. Some of the movables from the former Conventus Regalis survived thanks to the evacuation in 1944-1946. The miraculous painting mentioned above, which is now in the Dominican church in Służewo, Warsaw, was re-crowned in 1965 by Primate Stefan Wyszyński. At the request of the faithful from Zhovkva, Małgorzata Sokołowska made a faithful copy of the miraculous painting, which was solemnly handed over to the collegiate church in 1997. During his pilgrimage to Ukraine, at a Mass in Lvov, Pope John Paul II consecrated two golden crowns intended for this image of Our Lady, funded by Adam Výny. The solemn coronation Mass in the Zhovkva collegiate church took place on 17 November 2001. The image was crowned by Bishop Stanislaw Padewski of Lviv.

Under the supervision of the conservator Janusz Smaza, Ph.D., students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Krakow started in 1990 a programme of restoration of the gravestones of the Zhovkva, Danilovich and Sobieski families, as well as the epitaphs and stone portals in the church. The work was carried out as part of students' summer internships and through cooperation with qualified art conservators. Until 1995, they were supported by the Warsaw Society for the Care of Monuments together with the Ukrainian Society for the Care of Historical and Cultural Monuments.

Subsequent stages of the work were financed by the now defunct Office of the Government Plenipotentiary for Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad (its duties were taken over by the Department for Polish Cultural Heritage Abroad, then by the Department of Cultural Heritage, and now by the Department for Cultural Heritage Abroad and War Losses in the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage). In addition, the funds of the Office were used to carry out the conservation of the Heart of Jesus (Holy Trinity) altarpiece. This task was realised thanks to the cooperation with the Foundation for the Protection of Monuments, which in 1991-97 carried out the restoration of the pulpit, the altar of Our Lady of Czestochowa and the stalls in Zhovkva (with the financial participation of the General Conservator of Monuments). Subsequent phases of the work since 2006 have been financed for the most part from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage thanks to the funds of the Programme "Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad".

The results of the activities of Polish specialists working under the supervision of dr hab. Janusz Smaza include, among others, the conservation of the figure of St Adalbert the Bishop from the Żółkiewski tombstone, as well as the votive plate dedicated to the anniversary of the Battle of Vienna, the completion of work on the tombstone of Jakub Sobieski and the inscription plaque broken into several dozen pieces, and on the tombstone of Stanisław Daniłowicz. Conservation work was completed on the main portal of the collegiate church and the 17th-century side portal decorated with rosettes. The wall paintings in the chapels of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity were saved. The marble statue of Hetman Żółkiewski, the wall paintings and a number of other furnishings underwent conservation. Work has been completed on the 17th-century polychrome stone choir and the marble consecration plaque. One of the most difficult and labour-intensive stages of the work was the conservation of the vaults with their rich stucco decoration.

Comprehensive restoration works carried out at the collegiate church in Zhovkva since the early 1990s included another element - the conservation of works by Martin Altomonte, The Battle of Vienna and The Battle of the Parklands, from a set of four large-format battle paintings, which occupied a special place in the interior furnishings and ideological programme of the church. After the collegiate church was closed, the paintings were transferred to the Lviv Art Gallery in the 1960s-70s.

In December 2007 two larger paintings were transported to Warsaw: The Battle of Vienna and The Battle of the Parklands (each measuring over 65 square metres), and conservation work began, carried out in 2007-2011.

The five-year conservation project, carried out under the direction of Paweł Sadlej, was financed entirely from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, in the total amount of PLN 4.48 million. The conservation and research work was carried out in Poland by a team of Polish and Ukrainian specialists, under an agreement concluded by the Royal Castle in Warsaw with the Lviv National Art Gallery.

On the Polish side, the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the Wawel Royal Castle and the art conservation departments of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and Krakow participated in the project.

An integral element of the project was the display of the Battle of Vienna and the Battle of the Parklands after the completion of conservation works. In 2011-2012, the canvases were presented in the Redutowa Rooms of the Grand Theatre of the National Opera in Warsaw and the Museum of Architecture in Wrocław. In spring 2012, the paintings returned to Ukraine. At present, the key question is where to display the conserved paintings, as in June 2012, the Ukrainian side made a unilateral decision to place individual paintings in the castles of Olesko and Zloczów (branches of the Lviv National Art Gallery). The Polish side's unalterable demand is to place the paintings in the historic interiors of the St Lawrence Collegiate Church in Zhovkva, for which the paintings were commissioned by King John III and where they have been kept for more than 250 years.

At present, conservation work in the former collegiate church is focused on saving the frieze surrounding the collegiate church A team of conservators led by Drs. Janusz Smaza and Andrzej Kazberuk has been carrying out the work since 2014. thanks to grants obtained by the Cultural Heritage Foundation under the Programme of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage "Cultural Heritage", priority "Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad" and the Competition of the Senate of the Republic of Poland (in 2015 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs) "Cooperation with Poles and Poles Abroad".