On the so-called Yuriava Mountain, at an altitude of 321 meters above sea level, completing the slopes of the hill, there is a pearl of old Lviv architecture — the Greek-Catholic Cathedral of St. Jura. The park is carpeted with green, and through the lush crowns of trees you can see the outlines of the temple. This organic connection between architecture and the surrounding nature was felt even during the reign of Lev Danilovich. It was then, in 1280, that the first wooden church was built on this place. In 1340 it was burnt down during the capture of the city by the Polish king Casimir III. But already in 1363 a new stone church in Byzantine style was built in place of the wooden one. Its construction was finished according to some data in 1437, and according to others in 1434. Taking into account that the temple was located at a considerable distance from the protected center of the city, its walls were so powerful that when in the 40s of the XVIII century the church began to demolish, they could not be destroyed for a long time.
The modern appearance of the Cathedral of St. George was acquired in 1744-1770. The author of the project is considered to be the architect and sculptor Bernard Meretyn, a German by birth, who lived and worked in Ukraine for a long time. After his death in 1759, Sebastian Fessinger finished the cathedral together with the adjacent buildings. The beautiful church is built in the Rococo style, which emerged in the early 18th century in architecture and decorative arts.
The great architect John Georg Pinzel can also be considered a full co-author of the cathedral. The sculptures of St. Athanasius and St. Leo on the facade and the sculpture of St. George the Serpent-Bearer completing the structure belong to his carving. Decorated with sculptures, a stone two-marched staircase leads from the terrace to the entrance of the Cathedral of St. George. Famous painters such as J. Radyvilivsky, L. Domensky, F. Smuglewicz and S. Fabrzensky took part in the decoration of the interior. On the north side of the temple there is a chapel in which hangs the oldest bell in Ukraine, cast in 1341.
Metropolitans Andriy Sheptytsky and Volodymyr Sternyuk, Cardinals Sembratovich and Miroslav Lubachivsky, Orthodox Archbishop Photii and Patriarch Joseph the Blind are buried in its dungeons.
The cathedral was originally intended for the monks of the Basilian Order (a Catholic monastic order of the Byzantine rite). It was only after they moved to the monastery of St. Onufrius that the cathedral became a cathedral (a special status of a Christian church with an episcopal cathedra).
In 1998, the ensemble of Cathedral of St. George together with the historical center of Lviv and Vysoky Zamok Mountain were included in the world heritage list of UNESCO.