Leisure in the Carpathians brings tourists a lot of discoveries and pleasures a priori. The guests of the western part of Ukraine are presented with mountains and valleys, wooden churches and fortresses that withstood the pressure of Mongol hordes. One of the atypical objects for this region is Rozgirsky cave monastery, which has taken its rightful place next to other attractions of Skole and recognized as a true treasure of Galicia.
The Rozgirsky Monastery is carved into the rock. It is located on the south-eastern outskirts of the village Rozgirche, which belongs to the Stryj district of Lviv region. To get to the monastery from the village is very easy — just walk from the center and the former club in the direction of the forest. From it stretches a road up to the «ancient settlement», which is the local name of this attraction, not exceeding two hundred meters. Getting to the village of Rozgirce is convenient for those who are on vacation in Skola. It is enough to take a shuttle bus to Lviv and get off at the station Lower Stynava. After crossing the bridge over the Stryi River, the traveler will get to the village, known since 1460, that is, before America was discovered.
The cave monastery, although dated XIII-XIV centuries, but appeared before our era. Cro-Magnon-type people were engaged in house-building in the rocky massif of the Ukrainian Carpathians. This is evidenced by petrographs and stone faces similar to those found on the territory of the Tustan Reserve, the strongest historical attraction of Skole. A little later, the convenient niches in the rock carved by Homo habilis were adapted for pagan rituals by tribes practicing settled agriculture in the area. The most recent traces of rock painting found on the vaults of the artificial cave were painted by people in the 8th to 7th centuries before Christ.
Even later, the hollow in the rock served as a shelter for the locals during the attacks of the Tatar-Mongols, and with the spread of Christianity in the area, the praying and saving cavity in the rock was turned into a Christian temple. You will not find any other analog of this cave temple on vacation in the Carpathians. Similar structures are preserved in the Crimean Bakhchisarai — Uspenskij monastery, in Italian Gargano and Matera, in Georgia and Greece.
The Rozgirsky Cave Monastery is slightly inferior to its foreign counterparts in size. In appearance it resembles a well-fortified Norman castle. A stone staircase leads to the temple, curving like the neck of a noble horse. A rough rectangular aperture opens to travelers the entrance to the great hall or Lower Cave and the adjoining dwelling-room. From the underground hall a staircase leads upward. This is where the Upper Cave, which housed the temple, is located.
The historian Karpovich found that the Upper Cave has a structure typical of a standard Christian church. The space of the hall is divided into a main room and a raised altar part. Niches for lamps have been hollowed out along the edges of the altar. Three recesses on the opposite side were used for storing ritual objects. Light enters the temple from small holes of artificial origin.
The convenience of accommodation and originality of the construction, different from other sights of Skole, made the cave monastery a must-see for tourists on vacation in the Carpathians. Everyone who goes rafting on the Strye River, who consumes local mineral waters or just relaxes in Skole on one of the «green estates», spares no time to visit Rozgirche and see the most ancient sacral structure in the gut of the Carpathians.