Zhovkva Monastery

Zhovkva Monastery (Zhovkivskyi manastyr). A monastery of the Basilian monastic order and religious publishing center in Zhovkva, Galicia. It was founded in 1682 on the initiative of the bishop of Lviv (see Lviv eparchy), Yosyf Shumliansky, and suffered a major fire in 1690. Rebuilt with the support of the Polish king Jan III Sobieski, it slowly gathered stature through the 18th century. The monastery's most important period, however, was in 1895–1946, when it was the site of the Basilians' publishing activity (among the works published was the popular monthly journal Misionar and the scholarly Analecta Ordinis S. Basilii Magni/Zapysky ChSVV). In 1939 approx 35 monks ran the monastery's press. The success of its publishing ventures allowed the monastery to undertake extensive renovations from 1907 and to engage Yuliian Butsmaniuk during the 1930s to paint the church interior. After the Soviet occupation of Galicia, the monastery and press were closed down, and the monks living there were arrested. A catalog of the Monastery press's publications was published in Analecta Ordinis S. Basilii Magni (vol 5, 1967). In 1994, the Zhovkva publishing press facilities were returned to the Basilian monastic order.

[This article was updated in 2004.]