Saint Bartholomew church, Drohobych, Gothic and Baroque church in Drohobych, Ukraine

Saint Bartholomew Church in Drohobych is a single-nave Gothic brick church with a long, five-sided polygonal apse, located at 12 Danylo Halytsky Street. Its brick facades and buttresses are decorated with a diamond-shaped pattern of dark brown or dark red glazed bricks. The nave has tall stepped Gothic gables on the west and east facades, and the interior is supported by four pillars carrying a system of cross vaults, with ribbed vaulting in the altar part.

The building was founded in 1392 by King Jagiello as a brick church on the site of a former castle. Major reconstruction took place in 1511 after damage from raids in the region.

The church is dedicated to Saint Bartholomew, whose feast is celebrated on 24 August, the same day as Ukraine's Independence Day. In 2007 a monument to Pope John Paul II was unveiled in front of the entrance, attended by Bishop Marian Buczek and priests from Zhydachiv, Hnizdychiv and Truskavets. The late-Baroque interior paintings by Andriy Solitsky include a scene of the church's destruction by Bohdan Khmelnytsky's Cossacks and Tatars in 1648.

The site operates as an active Roman Catholic church and place of pilgrimage, welcoming visitors at appropriate times. It helps to check service times beforehand if you want to see the interior when light streams through the windows.

The church's bell tower incorporates a 13th-century defensive tower of the old Rus citadel, later rebuilt as a belfry in 1739. The 1572 Renaissance tombstone of Kateryna Ramultova, carved by Sebastian Czeszek, survives inside, along with a late-Gothic fresco of Saint Christopher.