In the 17th century, when the church was modernised, the old furnishings sometimes found new users and new places of display. The churches' altered decoration was donated or sold. This is how the Zhyravka church acquired an outstanding work of art, which today is considered one of the most valuable achievements of Lviv sculpture of the first decades of the 17th century.

History of the Orthodox Church in Zhyravka
In the small village of Zhiravka (Жирівка), located a few dozen kilometres south of Lviv (today in the Pustomyty district of Lviv region), there is a picturesquely situated wooden Church of St Michael the Archangel. The oldest mention of the local church dates back to the mid-16th century. It was replaced by a new wooden building in 1684. The present church, built by the parishioners in 1770 under the presidency of Andriy Snihorevych, replaced this church because of its poor condition.

Among the many modest churches of this type in the countryside, the Zhyravka church is distinguished by its impressive retable with a group of statues, which tightly fill the closing of the small presbytery. It is virtually invisible to the visiting faithful, obscured by a high iconostasis. The local tradition, which has been preserved in the scholarly literature, preserves the awareness of the origin of the sculptural composition from the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Lvov. The altar was to be paid for at 600 zlotys. The altar was old, but when set up in the new church it met the worship needs of the local Greek Catholic parish at the time.

Modernisation of Lviv Cathedral - relocation of its equipment
. The above-mentioned event was undoubtedly connected with the modernisation (baroqueisation) of the interior of the Lviv Cathedral, which began in 1765. Such work was undertaken on a large scale by the then Metropolitan of Lwów, Archbishop Wacław Hieronim Sierakowski (1699/1700-1780, Metropolitan of Lwów in 1760-1780). As a consequence, numerous furnishings were removed from the cathedral church, including altars, benches, tombstones and epitaphs that were old, dilapidated, obstructive to worship or no longer suited to aesthetic tastes. New altars were founded in place of the old ones. Old retables were destroyed, but sometimes they found new users and new places of display, were donated or sold.

Such activities were not isolated either in the 17th century or in the following century. In such a phenomenon one can also see a certain respect for the objects associated with the cult, and perhaps even a recognition of their historical and artistic value. A spectacular example is the magnificent Renaissance altarpiece in the church in Bodzentyn, near Kielce. It was moved there from the Krakow cathedral when it was decided to build a Baroque retable, which still adorns the Wawel temple.

An example of the acquisition of old furnishings for temples in the Ruthenian lands of the Crown is the beautiful marble and alabaster altarpiece in the former Potrinitarian St Nicholas Church in Lviv. This Mannerist work, made in 1599 for the Cathedral of Lviv, was acquired by the Trinitarians for their temple in 1771. The most interesting fact is that this time the transaction and transfer of liturgical equipment took place between the temples of two rites: Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic, which in the eastern territories of the Commonwealth have not always maintained friendly, fraternal relations.

Retabulum in the Orthodox Church in Żyrawce
The setting up of the carved retable, with proportions adapted to the high interior of the Gothic cathedral, required, under the new conditions, far-reaching interventions both in the size of the structure itself and in the matter of the carved decoration. In its present state, what remains of the original work is the central part with the predella (the base of the retable, the altarpiece) and the central field, framed on both sides by pairs of columns with curved shafts, known as Jerusalem columns. Various architectural elements, the finial and a certain set of figural sculptures, freely distributed on the retable and on the walls of the presbytery of the Zyravka church, also remain.

In the centre of the altar there may originally have been a representation of the Assumption of Mary . This seems to be supported by the wide frame, tightly filled with bas-relief choirs of musical angels. The predella contains the scene of the Creation of Adam . Its protagonist, depicted in a half-facet, is characterised by a typically Sarmatian type of beauty with a moustache and shaved hair. The finial features sculptures of Moses and David . The most striking feature is the winding columns girded with garlands of flowers, tightly framed by a swarm of putti in highly varied poses.

The retable in Żyrawka is rightly regarded as an outstanding work, one of the most valuable achievements of Lvov sculpture of the first decades of the 17th century. While maintaining due proportions, it is difficult not to notice traces of great Italian art in them - compositional patterns created by Michelangelo on the vault of the Sistine Chapel, in the scene of the creation of Adam, or Bernini's columns above the confession of St Peter in the Vatican Basilica.

The question is whether the provincial sculptor had heard of these masterpieces, or whether they were known to him from secondary realisations disseminated by printmaking. Aesthetic impressions are nowadays thwarted by the primitive, colour-aggressive polychromy with which the sculptures were covered during the renovations of the church in 1865 and 2010.

Despite attempts at attribution, the altarpiece remains the work of an anonymous artist. Nor is it, as the eminent Lvov art historian Mieczysław Gębarowicz (1893-1984) suggested with reservations, the former main altar of the Lvov Latin Cathedral, executed in 1616-1620, from the foundation of the Archbishop of Lvov Jan Andrzej Próchnicki (ca. 1533-1633) and Canon Łukasz Kaliński (1578-1633), later suffragan of Lvov. This is a pity, as the main altar mentioned above, with the miraculous image of the Virgin Mary of Domagalicz placed in it occasionally, witnessed the historic vows of King Jan Kazimir on 1 April 1656. However, this does not affect the assessment of the artistic and historical value of the retable in Żyrawka. The work has little chance of being popularised due to its location, which makes it impossible even to make a comprehensive photographic documentation.