The Carmelite Church of St. Theresa is a late-

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

church in the city of

Przemyśl Przemyśl () is a city in southeastern Poland with 56,466 inhabitants, as of December 2023. Data for territorial unit 1862000. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Subcarpathian Voivodeship. It was previously the capital of Prz ...

, in the

Subcarpathian Voivodship Subcarpathian Voivodeship is a voivodeship, or province, in the southeastern corner of Poland. Its administrative capital and largest city is Rzeszów. Along with the Marshal, it is governed by the Subcarpathian Regional Assembly. The name deriv ...

in southern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

History

Beginnings

The

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

order of

Carmelites The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (; abbreviated OCarm), known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a mendicant order in the Catholic Church for both men and women. Histo ...

came to Przemyśl in 1620. Their church was founded by the duke of Podolia, Michał Krasicki, and constructed in the years 1627-1631 Juraj Buzalka
Nation and religion: the politics of commemorating in south-east Poland
2007, Lit Verlag, 2007, pp. 91-94 most probably according to the design of Galleazzo Appiani. The interior is explicitly

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

, including a

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...

with a ship-like shape.

Partitions

In 1772 after the

First Partition of Poland The First Partition of Poland took place in 1772 as the first of three partitions that eventually ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth by 1795. The growth of power in the Russian Empire threatened the Kingdom of Prussia an ...

the city fell under

Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ** Austria-Hungary ** Austria ...

rule, which by a decree of

Joseph II Joseph II (13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from 18 August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg monarchy from 29 November 1780 until his death. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Emperor F ...

liquidated the order in 1784. The Austrian authorities also blocked the ongoing construction of a

Greek Catholic Greek Catholic Church or Byzantine-Catholic Church may refer to: * The Catholic Church in Greece * The Eastern Catholic Churches The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also known as the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Ea ...

Cathedral (an already erected belfry was later turned into a clock tower) and instead offered the town's Ukrainian population the confiscated Carmelite Church as part of a plan to solidify their rule over the newly acquired territory by setting its inhabitants against each other. In 1884, Ukrainian architect Mykola Zakharevych, a professor at

Lviv Polytechnic Lviv Polytechnic National University () is a public university in Lviv, Ukraine, founded in 1816. According to the Times Higher Education, as of 2024, it ranks first as a technical institution of higher education and second among all instit ...

, designed and built an addition a dome modeled that was modeled on St. Peter's Basilica in Rome which also incorporated elements of Ukrainian wooden church architecture. This dome was meant to symbolize the Ukrainian congregation's connection to the Vatican.Peremyshl church cupola dismantled amid protests
Ukrainian Weekly July 21, 1996

20th century

The 1925 Concordat between Poland and the holy See confirmed that the building belongs to the Greek Catholic Church. Soon after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

controlled

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

government expelled most of the Ukrainians from Przemyśl during the

Operation Vistula Operation Vistula (; ) was the codename for the 1947 forced resettlement of close to 150,000 Ukrainians in Poland, Ukrainians (including Rusyns, Boykos, and Lemkos) from the southeastern provinces of People's Republic of Poland, postwar Poland to ...

, including most of the clergy and bishop Josaphat Kotsylovsky (Jozefat Kocyłowski), who was martyred. In 1946 Carmelite friars, who were forced to leave their monasteries in Soviet Ukraine, settled in Przemyśl and returned to the empty church. In 1991, shortly after Poland regained full independence and the Church was able to freely operate, the church building became a focal point of Polish-Ukrainian tensions. The Latin Catholic Church decided to transfer the building to the Greek Catholic Church for the period of five years during which the Greek Catholics would construct a new sanctuary in Przemyśl and then give the church back to the Carmelite Order. It was felt by the Poles, that the Ukrainians, who perceived the return of the building as historical justice, had no intention of returning the church after this period of time. Local Poles occupied the church to prevent its transfer, and the

Latin Catholic Church The Latin Church () is the largest autonomous () particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Catholics. The Latin Church is one of 24 Catholic particular churches and liturgical ...

transferred a former Jesuit church to the Greek Catholics.

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

wished to return the church to the Ukrainian Catholics who had used it prior to their expulsion by the Soviets. The Carmelites begun modification of architectural details of the Cathedral to give it more of a Latin-rite appearance and erase traces of the church's links to Ukrainian Greek Catholicism. The belltower was a target due to its easily seen Cyrillic inscriptions. Latin Catholics in the city argued that the church which was originally Latin Catholic, confiscated and given to Ukrainians by Austrian authorities, was rightfully returned to the Poles. In 1996, against the orders of the conservator general of historical monuments in Poland, Prof.

Andrzej Tomaszewski Andrzej Stanisław Tomaszewski (26 January 1934 – 25 October 2010) was a Polish historian of art and culture, architect, urban planner and archaeologist. He was investigator of medieval architecture and art in Poland and abroad (mainly in Hungary ...

, the Carmelites destroyed the Habsburg-era

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

of the church, claiming that it disrupted Przemysl's "Polish" skyline, being ‘orthodox’ - despite it being modelled on the dome of S Peter’s Rome an act which sparked protests amongst Ukrainians in Przemyśl. The Carmelite church continues to serve the faithful of the Latin Rite. The church includes a plaque commemorating victims of the

Ukrainian Insurgent Army The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (, abbreviated UPA) was a Ukrainian nationalist partisan formation founded by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) on 14 October 1942. The UPA launched guerrilla warfare against Nazi Germany, the S ...

.Information about Church (Polish)

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Carmelite Church, Przemysl Churches in Poland Buildings and structures in Przemyśl Carmelite churches in Poland