The Lviv Dominican Church in the Middle Ages as the cult centre

Abstract

The oldest mention of the Dominican monastery in Lviv comes from around 1370-1375. The Dominican monastery church was named Corpus Christi, and its main altar was Saints Peter and Paul. From the 1370s it became the main center of Eucharistic piety, which was confirmed by a special indulgence order issued by Archbishop Jakub Strepa in 1394 and reinforced by a number of private foundations from the beginning of the 15th century. The church was the center of the Corpus Christi Brotherhood, whose members were mainly Lviv townspeople. Secular benefactors included the founders of private chapels, Beńko née Żabokruk, a nobleman (1402), and Mikołaj Czech, a Lviv merchant (1406). The latter financed the purchase of a number of relics and covered most of the costs of building a new nave and cloisters. The chapel of Saint Michael the Archangel played an important role in the Dominican cult, boasting its own indulgences and a grant granted by Michał Kulikowski in 1411. At the end of the 14th century, the church received an alabaster image of the Virgin Mary, called Jack's Mother. In 1401, Archbishop Strepa granted him a special indulgence privilege. It was worn in Corpus Christi processions, and from the end of the 15th century in rosary processions, but the cult of the Jacek's image of the Blessed Virgin Mary reached its peak only at the end of the 16th century.