Museum of STAROSKVARYAVSKY ICONOSTASIS
(the sacred monument of the 16-18 centuries),
the department of Lviv Museum of Religion

Description:
The museum was founded in 2015, 11 Oct, in the building of St. Archangel Michael church.

The church of St. Archangel Michael is one of the oldest wooden churches recognized as the monument of folk architecture in Ukraine. Its particular date of construction was discovered in 2008, while inspecting the building, on a balk of the Northen wall — the year 1508 was written with black paint in so called 'ustav' (oldest type of cyrillic typeface) used in the 16th century.
Originally, the church was placed in the neighbouring village Hlynsk on Horay mountain where was the place of an ancient hillfort Shchekotyn. At that time it was a place inaccessible for local inhabitants. Later, Hlynsk community built a new temple in a more convenient location. That quickly made the church on the mountain get empty. In 1715 the church was relocated to Stara Skvaryava and put at the place of an older wooden church of the Flight into Egypt, which was known from 1578 but burnt some time before.
The building of the church is of the three-section type, with one cupola, covered with wood shingles and consists of a square nave, a bit narrower altar section and a 'babynets' (a type of narthex-like structure in Eastern Christianity). That structure makes the church a typical example of Galician sacred architecture. Other characteristics of this structure are one window in the northern wall of the nave and two windows in the southern one. The building is 15 m high and takes up 50 m2. Till today, there were preserved original lower part of the construction and iconostasis, whereas the upper part was rebuilt later.
The icinostasis in the church was relocated there together with the building itself from Hlynsk, and now it's one and only exemplar of Ukrainian sacred painting from the 16-17th centuries.
One of the most precious and valuable exhibits there is a set of oldest icons from the praying row of the iconostasis (mid. 16th cent.) which depict two images of saints and two stories from the New Testament. In the middle of the row is the icon Christ Pantocrator (Christ All-powerful), with the Last Supper below. Those paintings are authored by artists belonged to Przemyśl school of sacred painting.
The worship tier (second one) was created in 1677-1687 by Ivan Rutkovych, a famous representative of Zhovkva school of sacred painting. His oldest painting are believed to be Deacons' Doors with the image of Archangel Michael, which according to M. Drahan, are dated back to the mid. 17th century. In the lower part, around the legs of the Archangel, you can see the donation inscription with the date of 1677. In this tier, there are also the icons of St. Nicholas, Virgin Hodegetria, Christ Pantocrator and the icon of the church patron called the Council of Archangel Michael.
The highest, final part of the whole stcrucure is the Crucifix with Bystanders (first half of the 18th cent.) and the row of Pentecost (late 19th cent.)
In 1995 the iconostasis was given for the restoration to Lviv Museum of History of Religion.
The restoration works in the church building were held in 2009-2014 (the project of an architect Serhiy Pinkovsky). During 2015 it was transformed into the museum.

Entrance fees:
Adults — 10 UAH.
Children up to 18 — 5 UAH.
The residents of Stara Skvaryava — free of charge.
Excursion rates:
Free of charge
Working hours:
10:00-17:00, Mon — closed.
Contacts:
Lviv region
Zhovkva district
Stara Skvaryava village
T. Shevchenko St. 2a

Tel.: +38 (097) 653-18-57
How to get there:
By public transport:
Go by bus from Lviv city to the centre of Stara Skvaryava village.
More information about public transport.

By car:
Go along the road M09 from Lviv to Zhovkva town. In the centre of the town turn on Doroshenko St. and go straight on untill Zhovkivska St. (which is already a part of Stara Skvaryava village).
GPS:
50.039903  23.949921  
  convert to dd°mm'ss"
 

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