As I wrote before the Church of the Assumption was ruled by the Stauropegia Fraternity, one of the strongest and most influencial Orthodox communities. It emerged on the basis of guilds and had many merchants and craftsmen among its members. First mentioned in 1439, in the 16th and 17th centuries this Fraternity was already given the privilege of a Stauropegion (it was not under the jurisdiction of the local bishops and received orders only from the Holy Patriarch in Constantinople). It became the ideological and religious center of Orthodox Lvov and the entire Western Ukraine. It also carried on enlightenment work: in 1586 it set up a school of “seven free sciences” for Ukrainians, a hospital and a printing house. Not far from the Church – in Blyakharskaya Street now renamed to Ivan Fyodorov Street (Ulitsa Ivana Fyodorova) until the 19th century there was the house of Bildaga, a middle class merchant whose house was used by Ivan Fyodorov for his second printing shop.
