Dormition Church, Eastern Orthodox church in Old Town, Lviv, Ukraine.
The Dormition Church is a three-nave basilica with a semicircular apse facing Pidvalna Street, built of cut stone after the brotherhood replaced brick with stone. Three domes with lanterns crown it; the central dome rests on four Tuscan columns. The facade has Tuscan pilasters, a Doric frieze with metopes and triglyphs, and carved donor coats of arms on the pendentives.
Construction of the stone building began in 1591 following wooden predecessors that had burned, and was completed in 1629 with support from the Orthodox Brotherhood. The structure has endured through centuries of political shifts while maintaining its role in the community.
The church was built for the Lviv Dormition Brotherhood, which ran a school and a printing press; the name Voloska comes from Moldavian hospodars whose donations funded construction. In 1830s Julian Velychkovsky gave the first sermon in Ukrainian here. A carved double-headed eagle on the facade recalls Tsar Feodor Ivanovich's gift of 1592.
The church stands at Pidvalna Street 9, with its apse facing that street and the main body running along Ruska Street; the Chapel of the Three Saints is joined to it. The Korniakt bell tower, 65 m high, stands nearby as a separate structure of the complex. Look for the carved grape-vine portal of the chapel and the relief of Saint George slaying the dragon on the facade.
The church's metopes carry carved stone reliefs on biblical themes, and the pendentives bear the coats of arms of donors Simeon and Jeremias Mohyla, cut by Lviv sculptors Kostiantyn and Yakiv Kulchytskyi. A depiction of Saint George slaying the dragon appears on the facade.
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