Lviv. The Museum of Father Blazheiovskyi's Embroidered Icons and Patterns — a Spiritual and Exhibition Centre

Museums come in many kinds. There are museums of icons, of the history of religion, of church heritage and of church vessels. Ethnographic and local-history museums keep collections of embroidered works, and in the Ivano-Frankivsk region there is a museum of embroidered shirts. But the only museum collection of embroidered icons in Ukraine can be seen in Lviv alone.

 

Lviv. The Museum of Embroidered Icons 

Entry to this museum is free, and it stands in the very centre of the cultural capital, 300 metres from Rynok Square and the City Hall. The museum was opened in 1999, and its collection numbers 280 icons and banners by the hand of Father Dmytro Blazheiovskyi. On display in the museum is an unprecedented iconostasis, every image in which was created by the power of talent and a tireless hand over the course of 40 years.

 

Lviv. The Museum of Embroidered Icons. Interiors 

The future priest, artist and historian was born in 1910 in the Lemko region, an ethnic Ukrainian land. The museum's founder studied at a Ukrainian gymnasium and at the University of Rome, and built churches in the United States. Besides his missionary work and his achievements in scholarship, he practised the embroidering of icons. The output of Father Dr Dmytro Blazheiovskyi numbers 350 pieces. Some of them are kept in the museums, seminaries and churches of the Vatican, France, Italy and Germany, but the largest gallery was created in Lviv. Possessing a fine aesthetic taste, the Master published 300 patterns of Ukrainian religious embroidery.

 

Father Dr Dmytro Blazheiovskyi (1910-2011)

In the two halls of the museum are set out the works of Father Dmytro, which are distinguished by their complex iconographic storylines and their many-figured compositions. The central part of the display is made up of artistic images of saints and of events on biblical themes.

 

Lviv. The Museum of Embroidered Icons. Interiors 

A large collection of canonical images of the Mother of God has been gathered — the Kyiv Panagia, the Vyshhorod Mother of God, the Hoshiv Mother of God, the Hustynia Mother of God, the Transcarpathian Boroniava Mother of God, the Ostra Brama Mother of God and many others.

 

Lviv. The Museum of Embroidered Icons. Holy images of the Mother of God

Portraits of the national Awakeners — Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Lesia Ukrainka and Markiian Shashkevych — as well as portraits of the Ukrainian hetmans, of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi and of Cardinal Yosyf Slipyi of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, are placed above the entrance to the museum hall.

 

Lviv. The Museum of Embroidered Icons. Images of political, religious and literary figures

A holy image embroidered in thread on cloth is a special kind of spiritual and fine art. The works of Father Blazheiovskyi are executed in the Ukrainian traditions, insightful and expressive. With great success and to the delight of lovers of embroidery, exhibitions of the icons were held in 150 towns and townlets all over Ukraine. Guests come from all over the country and from abroad to see these unusual examples of spiritual culture. Exhibitions of folk embroiderers are held in the museum halls, where talented masters of the needle and thread show their works.

 

Lviv. The Museum of Embroidered Icons. Interiors 

The museum is located at 26 Teatralna Street, Lviv. Visitors are welcome from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day of the week except Monday. Tickets are not sold; you may leave a charitable donation and buy a catalogue of Father Blazheiovskyi's embroidered icons.

Lviv. The Museum of Embroidered Icons