Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Rudky

TheChurch of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Rudky (Polish: Kościół Wniebowzięcia Najświętszej Maryi Panny) is a religious building, the sanctuary of the Mother of God of the Lviv Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine in the town of Rudky (now Sambir district, Lviv region, Ukraine).

The history of the Roman Catholic parish in Rudky dates back to the early fifteenth century. According to legend, the first church of Our Lady of Rudky was dedicated by Bishop Piotr Strzygonya Chrzostowski of Przemysl in the years between 1435 and 1450. Rudky are located approximately halfway between Lviv and Sambir. Obroshyn and Velykyi Lubin lie on the same route, where you should definitely visit the estate of the Lviv archbishops, the Jablonowski Brunicki Palace, and dozens of other ancient buildings.

During the Tatar attacks of 1450, the church was burned. A new church of St. Adalbert was built on the site of the burned church. In 1550 this church was occupied by the Arians for several years. At the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thanks to Jerzy Madalinski, a Rudkiv lord, the destroyed shrine was taken away from the heretics and given to the Catholics.

In 1612, when the Tatars and their allies were ravaging Rus and Podillia, Hetman Stefan Potocki lost the battle of Sasovyi Rih and was taken prisoner; then the village of Zheleznitsa, along with the local church, was burned. The nobleman Jerzy Czurillo found a miraculously saved icon of the Mother of God (like the Hodegetria) in the ruins of the burned church and transported it to the interior of the region. During the transportation of the image, the horses stopped in front of the church in Rudky and, as the message conveys, were forced by a whip and did not want to go further, which was recognized as the will of the Mother of God herself. Then the icon was placed in the main altar of the Rudky church.

In 1675, the church and the plebeian were burned down again, but fortunately, the image miraculously did not burn down again. Over time, a new, wooden shrine was built.

Because the Rudkiv church was set on fire several times by horsemen, there was a danger of burning the miraculous image. It was also believed that the wooden shrine was too small for the valuable Marian treasure, so in 1655 the construction of the present Baroque stone church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary began, which, after many interruptions, was completed in 1728.

During the period of the church's construction, its founders were mr. Jędrzej Stano, Michał Urbanski, Andrzej Michałczewski, Jan of Sobieszów Sobieski (buried in the local crypt). The shrine was secluded in 1741.

Over the centuries, the Rudkiv church has gathered countless faithful, as evidenced by the chronicles of the parish and the cult of the icon of Mary. Among the famous personalities, kings Jan Kazimierz, Michał Wisniowiecki, and Jan III Sobieski prayed to the Mother of God.

On July 2, 1921, St. Józef Sebastian Pelczar, Bishop of Przemyśl, crowned the image with papal crowns in gratitude to Mary for Her wonderful presence in Rudki for more than 300 years. The celebration was attended by many clergymen and several thousand faithful of both Catholic rites. A stone tablet placed in the wall of the church's presbytery, which remains there to this day, testifies to this fact.

The remains of the world-famous Polish playwright Count Alexander Fredro and his family members are buried in the dungeons of the side chapel of the Rudkiv church. Be sure to visit the village of Vyshnia, next door to Rudky, where the Fredro family estate is located, with a palace and a large park. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky's mother, Sofia, came from the Fredr family. The village is home to another outstanding monument of national significance, the wooden church of Saints Kuzma and Demian, unfortunately damaged by an unsuccessful "European renovation."

In the spring of 1946, the church in Rudkiv was closed, and the icon was taken to Poland (to Przemysl). After 22 years, the then Metropolitan of Krakow, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła, together with Bishop Ignacy Tokarczuk of Przemyśl, re-coronated the icon of Mary as the Queen of Bieszczady with its location in Yasenia. In 1992, the image was stolen and has not been found to this day.

During the Soviet regime, the church functioned as a wholesale store and a fertilizer warehouse, and a veterinary pharmacy was made in the narthex. The permanent residents of the church were, first of all, flocks of pigeons. The roof of the shrine, namely over the side aisles, was seriously damaged, so during rain water destroyed the walls and floor of the building. The church's equipment was used for secular purposes. The coffins and remains of the Fredrzejs were also desecrated.

On May 13, 1989, the Holy Mass was celebrated again in the Rudkiv church. A month after the reopening, on the day of the Sanctuary holiday (July 2), the parish received its first pastor, cf. Gerard Lyryk, a native of nearby Mostyska.

The faithful, together with the priest, began to restore the church and to maintain the grounds. It must be admitted that this latter required a great deal of determination because the disfavor of the authorities and the local environment had always accompanied the parishioners of Rudko.

Thanks to the zeal of the faithful, the church was restored from the outside, and the interior whitewash was repeatedly dried. The wooden structure of the roof and the roof itself were put in order. The bell tower has been thoroughly restored. At the same time, the churchyard was properly fenced, and the chapel of the Mother of God that once existed there was built on the territory near the church.

In 1990, the bodies of Oleksandr Fredra and other members of his family were reburied. Their coffins are located in the dungeon, in the chapel of the Holy Trinity, to the left of the main altar.

On November 11, 1995, a copy of the magnificent image of the Mother of God created in Torun returned to Rudky. The image was brought into the church and consecrated by the Latin Archbishop of Lviv, Marian Jaworski. The ceremony was attended by many faithful and clergy of both Catholic rites. On July 2, 1996, the icon of the Mother of God was solemnly crowned by Archbishop M. Yavorsky. In 2003, the same hierarch reactivated the Marian Sanctuary in the Rudkiv church.

The present church has three naves. In the main altar, which was not destroyed and was funded by Pavlo Pyatkovsky from Lviv, there is a miraculous image of the Mother of God of Rudkiv. There are 8 side altars, four of which are in their original condition. On the left side is the original pulpit from the second half of the seventeenth century in the form of a boat. Near the altar of the Cross of the Lord, in the wall, there is an authentic stone from the Holy Mount Calvary.

Near the church there is a bell tower built in the XVIII century, which once had a large clock and three loud bells, of which one has been preserved. However, the full view of the bell tower is somewhat obstructed by the surrounding buildings.

The Roman Catholic parish in Rudky includes the following areas: Rudky, Benkova Vyshnia, Khlopchytsi, Dolobiv, Luki (Koniushky Semenivski), Mykhaylevychi, Niklovychi, Novosilky, Poberezhne (Yatvyahy), and Pidhaichyky. Today, the parish has about half a thousand parishioners living in the above-mentioned areas, so the process of restoration of the Rudka church is slow, requiring a lot of patience and generosity of the donors.

In the town you can also visit the town hall, the museum of the liberation struggle, and a large, but unfortunately rather neglected, arboretum.

Like the churches of St. Martin (Semenivka), the Holy Trinity (Ustia Zelene), and St. Lawrence (Radymno), the building is characterized by modest linear architectural divisions.