Mariia Tsymbalista was born in Lviv. She studied at the Lviv Theological Academy, now – the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), at the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology. It was then that she became interested in the connections between the icon and contemporary art.
She continued her studies in Warsaw at the Cardinal StefanWyszyński University at the Department of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies. She focused her research on Ukrainian iconography in Polish and Ukrainian museum collections.
Later, she focused on the iconography of St. Paraskeva as the most popular among the saintly women in Ukrainian Christian culture. Her research continued and deepened in 2008, when Mariia began working at the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv.
Along with her museum work, she was invited to participate in various educational and curatorial projects. Since 2018, Mariia has been the head of the Graphics Department of the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum in Lviv. She strives to popularize Ukrainian ancient and contemporary sacred art, as well as the art of graphics.