Yesterday, the head of the Yavorivska VA, Yaroslav Komynskyi, in his regular column “Heritage through the pages of the past”, introduced the monument of cultural heritage of the Yavorivska district – the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Dobrostany.
The first written mention of the village of Dobrostany dates back to 1389. In the 16th century, there was already a wooden church in Dobrostany. This is evidenced by documents yellowed by time, which Lviv historian Vasyl Laba found in the archive. In his research about the village, he provides the following information: “On August 8, 1666, in the camp near Yaroshyn, King Jan-Kazimir at the request of Fr. Konstantin of Dobrostan granted him a privilege on the Yarmolovskoe field, which had been granted to the church by his predecessors. In 1785, new metric books were established in the church, which were kept here at the beginning of the 20th century. In the act of assessment of church property dated April 10, 1805, it is stated that the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was an old one, built by the community from various pine trees. It was all rotten and threatened to collapse.
In 1805, there were 120 families of parishioners. In 1804, the construction of a new brick church was started on the place of the wooden church designed by Michael Fabry, which was continued according to the Staunelli project in 1817 of the Teresian type (the name of the type comes from the name of Empress Maria Theresa). Church buildings in it were distinguished by certain elements, such as a tower (bell tower) above the entrance to the church, one central nave, often without domes. Next to the church at the entrance, there is a brick wall-type three-span belfry with three bells. Dobrostanivsk village head Ivanna Gul said that although the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was consecrated on October 9, 1817, the church holiday is celebrated on Ivan the Theologian as a memory of the fact that since the church was consecrated in the village, the cholera epidemic stopped.
And on December 25, 1893, the church received the right to organize holidays on the feast of St. John the Theologian. The building consists of a rectangular elongated nave, in the western part of which there is an inner vestibule, and a narrower, rectangular in plan altar from the east, to which small, rectangular sacristy adjoins from the south and north. The nave is covered with a gable roof, and the altar is covered with a three-gable roof with a lower ridge. Above the main facade rises a tier of the bell tower, square in cross-section, covered with a four-sided bathhouse, crowned with a blind lantern with a crown. Interior mural of 1899 by the painter Mykhailo Boyarskyi.
The modern four-tiered iconostasis of the horizontal carpentry construction with new royal gates and carved columns has been preserved in the church. In 2012-2014, the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was renovated. The walls of the church were built to a height of 950 mm; 1300 mm; 1900 mm, a reinforced concrete roof covering was arranged, the roof was covered with yellow slate, metal-plastic windows were installed, a new bell was installed in the belfry, paths were arranged in front of the entrance to the church and around the church, the walls in the interior were repainted, covered with paintings.
In 2018, a new tetrapod was produced. The main altar of the end of the 19th century. – wooden carved, covered with gilding, with a rectangular image of the Mother of God of Perpetual Help.
A rectangular image of “Jesus Christ – the Eucharist” is arranged above the cornice. On either side of the altar are two protruding round columns, above the entablature of the columns are carved figures of angels. The altar is completed by the image of the Mother of God with the baby Jesus, depicted full-length in a blue maphoria on a cloud – a symbol of exceptional reverence.
On either side of the image are two round columns, above the semicircular end of the image, decorated with carved grape leaves, is a wooden carved cross with rays radiating from the center. Images are made on a board with oil paints.
Kazalyntsya horse. XIX century near the colonnade of the northern wall of the main nave – a wooden carved bowl, decorated with carved elements. The church is located on a gentle slope of a hill that falls to the west. Deciduous and coniferous trees grow on the territory.
According to the functional typology, the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a sacred building. In front of the church from the west – a brick wall-type three-span belfry with three bells, strengthened by buttresses from the east. Today, Fr. Dmytro Boreyko is the administrator of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the village of Dobrostany.