Boim Chapel, Lviv

openas of 2026-10-011609Halychyna

Photo: MARELBU · CC BY 3.0 · source

A family burial chapel of 1609–1615 with a fully carved stone facade.

The chapel was built by the merchant and councillor Georg Boim, a Hungarian by birth, and completed by his son; the work went on in 1609–1615, and the sculptures of 1612–1615 are attributed to Johann Pfister and Hans Scholz. The sandstone building, square in plan, carries a dome on an octagon with a lantern, and the west facade is covered with carving in the spirit of northern mannerism; fourteen members of the family are buried in the crypt. The dome was crowned by Christ in Sorrow — a two-metre figure of the end of the 16th century with the inscription "Passer-by, stop and think whether your sufferings are greater than mine": on 30 November 2021 it was taken down, restored in Warsaw for the first time in four hundred years, and since January 2024 it has been shown in the Pinsel Museum; it will return to the dome after the restoration of the chapel itself. Since 1969 the chapel has been a branch of the Lviv Art Gallery; the building is guarded by sensors for vibration from the trams.

Routes through this landmark

• Heart of Lviv