Churches in Lviv
Lviv can be recognized as the city of churches, and when you look at the tourist map, you’ll see many churches. Many of them look similar, so after a while, it can become hard to distinguish them all.
The church I liked the most in terms of its exterior is the Gothic-style St. Olha & Elizabeth Church, which is also referred to as St. Elizabeth Church. Its interior doesn’t have anything particularly special, except for the large windows and the light beams coming through them into the church. For some reason, this church might not appear on tourist maps (Address: Kropyvnytskoho Square, 1). The church was named to honor the Austrian Empress Elizabeth, whom people dearly loved. Later, it was renamed to include Olha as well. According to an interesting piece of information we learned from a taxi driver on the way back, this church was built in such a grand manner to overshadow another religious structure near the train station, St. George’s Cathedral. In fact, the first structure to greet people coming from the train station was St. Elizabeth Church.
St. George’s Cathedral is a grand cathedral built on a small hill of the same name, and its construction took about 20 years. It is considered the heart of the Greek-Catholic religion in Ukraine today. This Baroque-style cathedral is also more ornate inside compared to St. Elizabeth. It is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is also known as St. Yura Cathedral (Address: Ploshchad’ Svyatogo Yura, 5).
Aside from these two churches, we visited the Transfiguration Church, the Latin Cathedral, St. Peter & Paul Church, and the Dominican Church. The Transfiguration Church has a lot of pictorial representations inside. The Latin Cathedral is more adorned with sculptures. We passed by St. Peter & Paul Church several times without much interest, and only decided to enter when we had some extra time. Its interior decoration is well done. The Dominican Church, however, does not reflect the grandeur of its exterior inside. The Boim Chapel is very small, and you might not be able to enter if there is a group inside. The entrance fee is 30 Grivna. Inside, there is a wall decorated with finely detailed sculpture art; considering there are many religious structures, unless you have a special interest, it might not be necessary to visit. The Armenian Church seemed to be under restoration, and despite visiting twice, we couldn’t find it open. Its exterior gives a different impression compared to the others.
Please note that this post is pre-war, there might be changes in the current situation of those churches. 🙁
