Church of St. Olha and Elizabeth, Gothic Revival church near central railway station, Lviv, Ukraine
The Church of St. Olha and Elizabeth is a neo-Gothic church on Kropyvnytskyi Square, beside Horodotska Street. Its 88-metre height makes it Lviv's second-tallest structure. The design by Teodor Talowski uses pointed spires, pointed windows and a portal with a large rose window; the facade carries a 1910 statue of St. Elizabeth by Tadeusz Błotnicki.
Construction started in 1903 under Archbishop Jozef Bilczewski's leadership with architect Teodor Talowski. The building was finished by 1911 to serve the Catholic population of the western suburbs and railway workers in the area.
The church was built as a Roman Catholic parish for railway workers and was named after Empress Elisabeth of Bavaria, known as Sisi. Since 1991 it has belonged to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic community and is now called the Church of Saints Olha and Elizabeth. In 2016 a stained-glass iconostasis by Yurii Pavelchuk and Oleksandr Lychko was installed, the first of its kind in Ukraine.
The church stands on Kropyvnytskyi Square beside Horodotska Street, between the main railway station and the Old Town, so it is easy to reach on foot. The building is an active Greek Catholic parish; visits are for worship, not tower climbing.
A shell fired by Ukrainian artillery during the Polish-Ukrainian war of 1918–1919 is still lodged in the church wall, beneath an inscription reading "Ex obsidione ruthenorum" ("From the Ruthenian siege of 6 and 9 March 1919").
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