It was founded by Jacob, son of Shahinshah, and Panos, son of Abraham, both from Kaffa . The architect Dorchi (Doring), who was also employed on the Church of St Juraj , is credited as the designer of its oldest surviving section , built between 1356 and 1363.

Churches such as the Armenian cathedral are rarely found in this part of Europe, as the architect drew inspiration from the churches of Armenia. Historians have identified stylistic connections with the famous cathedral in Ani and the church in Odzhun, as well as with the 14th- and 15th-century churches of the Armenian colony in Kaffa in the Crimea. The building erected in Lviv has a rather cramped interior, closed off to the east by three apses. All that remains of it today is the chancel with its apses and a dome on a 12-sided drum supported by trompes. In the oldest part of the cathedral, fragments of late medieval painted decoration have survived.

In 1363, King Casimir the Great established Lviv as the seat of the Armenian archbishopric and granted this ethnic minority the right to judicial and religious autonomy. Support from the authorities grew – particularly after the Armenian Orthodox Church in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth entered into union with the Roman Catholic Church. In 1630, Bishop Mikołaj Torosowicz made a profession of faith before Pope Urban VII and was conferred the title of archbishop. He also secured a guarantee that no changes would be made to the Armenian liturgy and rites. The nuns residing in the convent adjacent to Lviv Cathedral adopted the Rule of St Benedict in 1660, adapting it to the needs of the Armenian liturgy.

The appearance of the Armenian cathedral has changed over the years. Hodża Andrzej of Kaffa funded a new, free-standing bell tower, erected in 1571 by Piotr Krassowski . The previous bell tower had been destroyed by fire. In the 17th century, the nave was enlarged. Over time, new furnishings, similar to those found in Roman Catholic churches, such as a pulpit and confessionals, appeared in the cathedral. This was due, amongst other things, to the fact that, following the death of Archbishop Torosowicz, a gradual Latinisation had been taking place within the Armenian Church.

In 1784, as a result of the Josephine Suppression , many churches and monasteries in Lviv were closed down or demolished. Two Armenian churches were also not spared – the 15th-century Church of the Holy Cross and the 16th-century Church of St Anne, together with the surrounding cemetery and the adjacent Antomak Monastery (Armenian monks of the Order of St Anthony the Hermit). The gravestones from the closed necropolis were moved to the courtyard of the Armenian cathedral.

In the 19th century , increasingly forceful proposals were put forward for the complete abolition of the Armenian rite in Polish territories . A fervent defender of the traditional rite was the preacher from Stanisławów, Father Izaak Mikołaj Issakowicz, who became Archbishop of Lviv in 1882. His predecessor, Archbishop Grzegorz Józef Romaszkan, had already ordered the use of the Armenian Missal and liturgical books. In turn, thanks to Archbishop Issakowicz, the Armenian Breviary was published, with the approval of the Holy See, and is still used today by the clergy of this rite.

The 20th century

When Fr Józef Teodorowicz began his ministry as Archbishop of Lviv in 1902 , he turned his particular attention to the cathedral, which was falling into ruin, which was too cramped for the congregation, its interior now differing little from that of Latin churches. As early as the 19th century, the free-standing bell tower—the belfry— had been rebuilt and given a crown featuring several small domes, and the first restoration work was undertaken at the turn of the century under the supervision of Prof. Jan Bołoz-Antoniewicz.

In 1908, the extension of the church began , and was subsequently continued after a hiatus caused by the outbreak of war. The architectural work, the design of which was based on early Christian tradition, was entrusted to Franciszek Mączyński . The original coffered ceiling above the 17th-century section of the nave is his work. The interior of the dome, erected above the oldest part of the cathedral, is adorned with a mosaic created in 1908 to a design by Józef Mehoffer . Its motifs were drawn from the miniatures of the extremely valuable Skevreński Gospel Book dating from 1197. Furthermore, the lower arches of the chancel vault were adorned with specially imported Venetian mosaics .

The chancel itself has also been given a new look. In the 1920s, Witold Minkiewicz designed the high altar, the archbishop’s throne and the semi-circular balustrade. However, it is above all the three paintings by Jan Henryk Rosen – The Adoration of the Shepherds, The Last Supper and The Crucifixion – that attract particular attention. The same artist, drawing on Armenian and Byzantine motifs in the spirit of modernism, also created some of the stained-glass windows and the stylised, monumental painted wall decorations in the rest of the cathedral. Among these, *The Funeral of St Odilon* is considered the most successful. Jan Henryk Rosen was offered a position at the Armenian Cathedral by Archbishop Teodorowicz himself, who was captivated by his paintings on themes drawn from Jacob de Voragine’s *Golden Legend*, which the artist had exhibited during his first solo exhibition at the Zachęta in 1925.

The head of the Armenian Church had already decided some time earlier to commission new murals for the Lviv Cathedral. This was prompted by the discovery of fragments of old polychrome paintings, which emerged from beneath the plaster during renovation work carried out in 1908. The Archbishop wished for a decoration which, in accordance with Armenian tradition , would cover the entire walls of the cathedral. Rosen had no experience whatsoever in the field of mural painting. However, he rose to the challenge, which brought him great fame and recognition, although it must be said that there was no shortage of critical voices either. There is an interesting fact associated with these works. Among the figures depicted were numerous portraits of people living at that time . Although canon law prohibited such practices, Rosen faced no consequences. The idea was very well received by the public, and Archbishop Teodorowicz himself was among those portrayed, as St Thomas Aquinas. The artist did not forget to include himself either; St John of Nepomuk bears his features.

The magnificent frescoes on the walls of the Armenian cathedral brought Rosen new commissions, including a painting entitled *The Defence of Częstochowa* for the papal chapel at Castel Gandolfo, as well as polychromes and mosaics in numerous churches in the United States, where he moved in 1933. The nearly half a century he spent there was the most fruitful period of his career.

Over the years, the area around the cathedral became one of the most beautiful corners of Lviv, known as the Armenian Quarter , often compared to the streets of Jerusalem. The cathedral’s surroundings were truly enchanting – the cloisters of the southern courtyard, the eastern courtyard with a statue of St Christopher perched on a tall column, and the northern courtyard with the remains of a cemetery, the nearby convent of the Armenian Benedictine Sisters, the archbishops’ palace, and the townhouse which, from 1932, housed the Armenian Archdiocesan Museum. Unfortunately, in 1945 the Soviet authorities ordered the cathedral to be closed, and some of the most valuable artefacts were taken to Yerevan. Consequently, no further work was undertaken on the cathedral’s expansion, which had been planned by Archbishop Teodorowicz, who died in 1938. For many years, the church served as a museum storeroom for icons and other objects of sacred art .

The 21st century

After the year 2000 and the visit to Lviv by the Holy Father John Paul II, the church was restored to worship and taken over by the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church . In 2006, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland succeeded for the first time in establishing cooperation with the current custodians of the church. The first project to be carried out, coordinated by the Foundation for the Culture and Heritage of Polish Armenians, was the conservation of the stained-glass window and the skylight in the cathedral’s western dome . The stained-glass window, designed by Karol Zyndram Maszkowski, was presumably produced at the Kraków-based stained-glass workshop run by Władysław Ekielski and Antoni Tuch, as the latter was employed on the decorative painting of the dome, in whose skylight the stained-glass window is situated. It underwent conservation work and was partially reconstructed by a team of conservators comprising Ewelina and Robert Kędzielewski. The renovation of the skylight was carried out by a team of Polish specialists under the supervision of Dr Janusz Mróz.