Jesuit Cahedral is an example of Lviv Baroque style and was erected at the time when the Jesuit Order was consolidating its position in the Western Ukraine.

At first, the Jesuits built a modest wooden church in Lviv in 1584 but in 1608 they opened a college attached to it and two years later began constructing the grandiose Church of St.Peter and St.Paul which was intended to enhance the Order's prestige.

Between 1612- 1614 the work was supervised by a monk Sebastian Lamhius and a Antoni Ragonius, and later by Jacopo Briano, who had built many Jesuit Churches in Poland and Germany.

The design of Cathedral is reminiscent of Il Gesu Church in Rome. By 1630 the construction of the church was virtually completed.

Adjacent to the Cathedral is the building of the Jesuit College, dating from 1723. The College was set up in 1608. According to some sources, among its students was Bohdan Khmelnytskyj.

On January 20th 1661 by special decree of the Polish King John Kazimiers it was converted into a university.

This date is considered to be the foundation date of Lviv University as institution. Later the L'viv University has moved to the former building of Seim (Parliament) of Galicia and Lodomeria.

The church hundred-metre-high tower, the highest in the entire history of Lviv, was finally finished only in 1702. Its belfry, 100 meters high, dominated the city until it was taken down in 1830 due to safety reason.