In the center of Berezhany, including around the market square, examples of buildings from all four phases of the city’s development have been preserved to this day. The cultural highlights range from a castle chapel with furnishings spanning several centuries to museums in the town hall. When planning your visit, you can focus on different themes: urban development, sacred art and collections offer different ways to explore the history of the place.

City Center and Market Square

The surviving buildings make the development of Berezhany tangible through examples from all four phases in the city center. The market square is part of this area and is also the subject of a dedicated guided tour. The Berezhany State Historical and Architectural Reserve offers the one-hour “Walk around the Market Square.” The tour gives the square a distinct place among the city’s cultural highlights. Those interested in architectural development can use the four phases as a framework for viewing the surviving examples without assigning them to a single period.

Castle Chapel and Artistic Furnishings

Within the Sieniawski Castle complex, the Chapel of the Holy Trinity preserves authentic artistic furnishings dating from the 16th to the 18th century. Sculptors and artists Herman van Hutte, Heinrich Horst, Sebastian Chashek, Johann Pfister, Leonardo Marconi and Enrico Conti contributed to its creation. The long period of its creation and the six named contributors give this part of the castle complex a clear art-historical focus. The chapel can therefore be considered a distinct topic alongside the city’s buildings around the market square and the collections in the town hall.

Armenian Church: Architecture and Art

The Armenian Church was built in 1764 from dressed stone at the initiative of the local Armenian priest Deodat Horbach. It is an architectural monument of local significance and represents Berezhany’s multicultural heritage. It is also the only Armenian church preserved in Ternopil Oblast. Its furnishings include ornamental painting, narrative murals, decorative stucco, a sacred relief of Saint Nicholas and an organ. Its year of construction, building material and furnishings give the church a distinctive place among the city’s sacred art.

Museums in the Town Hall

Berezhany Town Hall is an architectural monument of national significance. At the end of the 20th century, it was converted into a museum space; it houses the Local History Museum, the Book Museum, the Bohdan Lepky Museum, and the Museum of Sacred Art and the History of the Persecuted Church. The Local History Museum is on the second floor and has 26 exhibition halls. The Bohdan Lepky Museum opened on August 27, 1995. Its fifth hall displays 56 original paintings from Lepky’s artistic work, mostly portraits. A 2021 description lists seven halls and more than 2,300 exhibits for the Museum of Sacred Art and the History of the Persecuted Church. These include twelve old printed works and eleven carved wooden sculptures ranging in height from 90 to 215 cm. The museums thus cover topics ranging from local history and books to Lepky’s portraits and sacred art.

Two Guided Tours, Two Durations

The Berezhany State Historical and Architectural Reserve offers a guided tour of the Sieniawski Castle complex that lasts one academic hour. The “Walk around the Market Square” is listed as lasting one hour. You can choose between the castle complex and the market square as the focus of your tour and take the stated duration into account when planning your time. If one of the tours is important for a particular date, check the schedule in advance.

Discover more destinations: Vysoke, Trostianets, Monastyryska, Ternopil, Husiatyn, Zbarazh, Oryshkivtsi, Kosiv.

Return to the regional travel overview: Ternopil Oblast.