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executed by a mediocre theatre decorator, a certain Jan
Düll, and by another painter, Marcin Jabłoński, and survived
only until the conservation of 1908–1925 [Fig. 14].
Jabłoński was most probably responsible for the murals in
the interior, whereas Düll, quite appropriately, must have
painted an illusionistic, arcaded mock gallery on a wall
outside the church, visible in an archival photo [Fig. 15].
The Renovation and Extension
of the Cathedral in the 20 th Century
The year 1902 marked the beginning of a ‘new era’ not only
for the cathedral but also for the whole Armenian Catholic
Archdiocese. At the beginning of February of that year
the Rev. Józef Teodorowicz (1864–1938) was ordained the
new Archbishop [Fig. 16]. Right from the outset of his tenure,
he declared that a thorough renovation of the cathedral
building and its redecoration in the ‘Armenian spirit’
would be the foremost of his objectives. The church was indeed
in a very poor state of repair and immediate measures
had to be taken in order to preserve the respectable monument.
The walls were cracked, the roof leaky, underground
water produced damp which weakened the foundations of
the church and permeated the whole interior. The other,
in a way ‘ideological’ reason for the Archbishop’ s resolution
was, however, to maintain and even more, to assert
Armenian identity.
It was precisely in the sphere of religion that the Armenians
preserved most of the elements distinguishing them
from the Poles. Their language was actually only present
in the liturgy. In every-day life the Armenians no longer
spoke (or only spoke but neither wrote nor read in) Armenian.
The so-called ‘old-Armenian’ language, grabar, was
used only in liturgy – just like Latin was the ritual language
in the Roman Catholic Church. But already at the beginning
of the twentieth century Armenian was no longer
understood, except for the main prayers and formulas recited
by the celebrant. The liturgy had to be translated into
Polish so that the new generations of Armenians could understand
it; or, the Armenians would learn by heart most
of the prayers and other elements of the mass. A functional
knowledge of the Armenian language was apparently no
longer necessary.
It was due to this process of Latinization that already
in the 1860s voices were heard that the tiny Armenian
Archdiocese should be suppressed and incorporated into
the Roman Catholic one. This would also mean the suppression
of the Armenian liturgy which – as has already
been stated – had constituted for centuries the core of
Armenian identity, and which for the Armenians was the
carrier of their national tradition. Fortunately, the threat
never came to fruition. This is how the right to their religious
identity was defended by the Rev. Izaak Isakowicz,
Archbishop Teo dorowicz’ s predecessor to the episcopal
throne of Lvov: ‘An own, distinct rite is a glorious testimony
to the richness and spiritual fertility of this community
because it flows directly from its heart. Many
centuries of the inner life of Armenians have contributed
not to a mere bundle of loose prayers; on the contrary
– they have produced one coherent liturgy, a new and
individual chord in the history of the Church’.
It may be therefore assumed that – though the renovation
of the cathedral was necessary because the building
was dilapidated – its restoration and decoration was aimed
principally at re-Armenization, that is, at restoring the
church’ s original Armenian character that had been lost
over the centuries under the influence of Western culture.
It has to be remembered that by the beginning of the twentieth
century the church had undergone numerous refurbishments
and alterations, appropriate rather for a Roman
(and not Armenian) Catholic church interior. And since
– apart from church architecture and manuscript illumination
– Armenian art had not developed any distinct features
which would be clearly identifiable as ‘Armenian’, it
appears that the basic notion adopted by the Archbishop
while devising the decoration of the cathedral was that of
Armenia as the first country to have embraced Christianity
as its state religion. Christianity was declared the state religion
in Armenia at the turn of the fourth century, thanks
to the mission undertaken by St Gregory the Illuminator
(meaning precisely ‘the baptizer’; St Gregory later became
the patron saint of the country). Hence both the extension
to the church building and its decorative elements followed
this conviction and were carried out in a style which may
roughly be defined as Early Christian. At the same time,
there must have existed a sort of archetypal belief that the
art of the little-known in Lvov Armenian forefathers, who
had come from the distant Asia, was exotic and very rich.
This explains why the restorers often used decorative motifs
generally perceived as ‘of eastern origin’, ‘Moresque’ or
‘Arab’, but not necessarily Armenian, all the more so because
the original stone carvings, being uncovered during
the restoration (starting from around 1908), also displayed
Islamic stylistic features.
The Archbishop must have set much store by the appearance
and renovation of his cathedral, since the first
works apparently started just after his installation, and initial
preparations must have begun still before he formally
ascended to the archbishopric throne. There is evidence
that before the August of 1902 the three apses of the cathedral
were renovated. The stone, blind arcades added on the
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