To the question of the “seat” of Lviv bishops of the second half of the 16th–the first half of the 18th century (on the basis of the glorification portrait of Bishop Athanasius Sheptytskyi from the funds of the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion)
Abstract
The location of the “seat” (residence) of Lviv bishops during the second half of the 16th – the first half of the 18th centuries (Makary Tuchapskyi, Arsenius and Hedeon Balaban, Jeremiah Tysarovskyi, the brothers Arsenius and Athanasius Zheliborskyi, Yosyf Shumlianskyi, Varlaam and Athanasius Sheptytskyi) is traced. On the basis of archival documents and scientific research, it is determined that in different periods there were episcopal chairs in Krylos near Halych, Lviv churches of St. Yuri and Assumption of the Virgin Mary, in the Univ monastery. For a certain period, Lviv bishops stayed in their family estates.
It is argued that the Lviv episcopate was not founded in 1539 according to the concept of the bishop’s court, but the ancient Galician metropolis was transformed into it. Therefore, chair in Krylos remained the determining factor, which, however, could not always be the place of the “seat” of bishops due to frequent destruction during Turkish-Tatar attacks and the distance from the episcopal center in Lviv. Given this circumstance, church councils were held in Lviv’s Church of St. Yuri.
A comparative analysis of the temple depicted in the “Portrait-glorification of Athanasius Sheptytskyi” from the funds of the Lviv Museum of the History of Religion is carried out. The falsity of the scientists’ statement that the mentioned portrait shows the old Lviv church of St. Yuri is substantiated. It is established that at the time of writing the glorification portrait, it fell into desolation, which served as a motivation for the construction of a new church. It is doubtful that the destroyed church would be depicted in such a ceremonial portrait. It is proven that the glorification portrait depicts the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Krylos and it testifies to the importance of the Ruthenian tradition of the metropolitan chair in Halych for Lviv bishops during the entire period until the construction of the new church of St. Yuri in Lviv, which at the beginning of the 19th century acquired an officially recognized cathedral status.
