VILNIUS - In Your Pocket

Church of the Holy Spirit (Šventosios Dvasios
Bažnyčia) B-3, Dominikonų 8, tel. (+370) 5 262 95
95. Like many of the city’s churches, the Dominican Church
of the Holy Spirit was built on the site of a former wooden
house of worship that met a fiery fate. The current building’s
appearance started taking shape towards the end of the
14th century. In 1501 it was given to an order of Dominican
monks who built a monastery nearby. Its present Baroque
appearance dates to the mid-18th century when the church
was rebuilt after serious fire damage. Inside is a wealth of
Baroque and rococo splendour, well worth further investigation.
Interestingly, the building, which functions as Vilnius’
Polish Catholic community’s main church, remained opened
throughout the entire Soviet occupation. Gaining rare access
to the church’s crypts promises a ghoulish adventure amidst
some 2,000 corpses in varying states of repair. Dating from
the 17th and 18th centuries, the bodies are supposedly
victims of the plague. Q Mass only in Polish 15:00, 18:00,
Sun 08:00, 09:00, 10:30, 12:00, 13:30, 18:00. J
Cathedral
Cathedral-Basilica of
St. Stanislaus & St.
Ladislaus (Vilniaus
Šv. Stanislovo ir Šv.
Vladislovo Arkikatedra
Bazilika) C-2,
Katedros 1, tel. (+370)
5 261 11 27. The most
important Catholic building
in Lithuania, Vilnius Cathedral as it’s more usually known
was first built in 1251 by a newly converted Grand Duke
Mindaugas on the site of a supposed pagan temple.
Returned to pagan use after Mindaugas’ death in 1263,
the church was given back to the Catholic Church on the
country’s official conversion to Christianity in 1387, although
the building that now stands in its place has little to
do with the original structure. The current building dates to
around 1419, with countless modifications and additions
made after that. Its present Neo-Classical form is largely
down to the work of the Lithuania’s first true architect,
Laurynas Stuoka Gucevičius (Pol. Wawrzyniec Gucewicz,
1753-1798), who was also responsible for a number of
other notable buildings in the city including the Town Hall.
The rather plain nave betrays eleven chapels, among them
the must-see High Baroque Chapel of St. Casimir (1458-
1484), Lithuania’s patron saint. Built in 1636 to house
his remains, the chapel is one of the country’s national
treasures. The three statues of Sts. Stanislaus, Helena
and Casimir on the roof, supposedly representing Poland,
Russia and Lithuania, are 1997 copies of the 18th-century
originals which were taken down and lost by the Soviets
in 1950, the year the building was confiscated from the
Catholics. Spending several years as an art gallery and
even mooted as a car repair workshop at one time, the
Cathedral was returned to the Catholic Church on October
22, 1988 during the eventful Sąjūdis Congress and was
re-consecrated on February 5, 1989. The 57-metre freestanding
bell tower, a popular contemporary meeting
place, was originally part of one of the gates in the city’s
defensive wall and has been added to several times over
the centuries which gives it its peculiar shape. It received
six new bells in 2002, baptised by Cardinal Audrys Bačkis,
the current Archbishop of Vilnius, in a special ceremony.
Q Mass 08:00, 17:30, 18:30, Sun 08:00, 09:00, 10:00,
11:15, 12:30, 17:30, 18:30 (Latin). J
vilnius.inyourpocket.com
what to see
Evangelical Lutheran Church (Evangelikų
Liuteronų Bažnyčia) B-4, Vokiečių 20, tel. (+370)
5 212 21 25. Built in 1555, two years after the first
German-speaking Lutheran community is said to have
arrived in Vilnius, the crowning glory of this small Gothic
and Baroque church on the street named after the city’s
German community is the gorgeous rococo altar, dating
from 1741 and the work of Johann Christoph Glaubitz
(Jonas Kristupas Glaubicas, ca. 1700-1767), a Lithuanian
of German extraction and the city’s foremost architect
at the time. Serving as a workshop and basketball court
under the Communists, the building was returned to its
congregation in 1991 and has since become the predominant
house of worship for the capital’s multi-denomination,
English-speaking Christians. Q Service Tue, Thu 08:00,
Wed 18:00, Fri, 17:00, Sun 09:30 (English, Ecumenical
Protestant), 11:00 (Lithuanian). J
Franciscan Church (Pranciškonų Bažnyčia) B-4,
Trakų 9-1, tel. (+370) 5 261 42 42. The Franciscan
Church, or the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary and Franciscan Abbey in Vilnius to give it
its full title, dates from the middle of the 14th century.
Currently a beguiling building site of crumbling Gothic
and Baroque magnificence, work continues both inside
and out to restore it to its original beauty. Amidst the
hastily assembled wooden seating, pile of bricks on the
sanctuary and scaffolding towers, work is slowly moving
forwards. At the time of our last visit, the Chapel of the
Virgin Mary, complete with a statue of the lady reputed
to have miracle-working powers, was nearing completion,
giving some indication of how things will eventually look.
Q Mass 17:30 (Lithuanian), 19:00 (Polish), Sun 10:00
(Lithuanian), 11:30 (Polish), 13:00 (Polish). J
Holy Trinity Church & Basilian Gate (Šv. Trejybės
Cerkvė ir Bazilijonų Vartai) C-5, Aušros Vartų 7b, tel.
(+370) 5 212 25 78. Consisting of a church, monastery,
belfry and beautiful rococo gate, with the exception of the
latter much of it in a state of hideous disrepair, the Holy Trinity
Church originally dates from 1514 and features elements of
Gothic, Baroque and Neo-Byzantine architecture. Built at the
behest of the Belarusian national hero Konstantin Ivanovich
Ostrozhsky (Konstantinas Ostrogiškis, ca. 1460-1530), the
church, which was extensively altered after a serious fire in
the middle of the 18th century, belongs to the Uniates or
Eastern Catholic Church, a peculiar faith which fuses together
many Orthodox beliefs whilst recognising the Pope as God’s
representative on Earth. The church is a complete mess
inside, almost completely empty with the exception of some
wonderful, barely visible frescos both inside and out. There’s
also a small chapel on the right as you enter. Renovation
work is slow. The elaborate, 17.9m gate was built in 1761
to a design by Johann Christoph Glaubitz (Jonas Kristupas
Glaubicas, ca. 1700-1767). Q Service only in Ukrainian Mon
- Wed 06:30, Sat 09:00, Sun 10:00. J
Orthodox Church of St. Paraskeva (Pyatnickaya)
C-3, Didžioji 2. Dating back to the middle of the 14th century
and itself built on the site of what many believe to be a former
pagan place of worship, the charming albeit somewhat diminutive
Orthodox Church of St. Paraskeva can not only claim to have
been the first church in Vilnius to be made of stone but is also
the alleged location of the baptism in 1705 of none other than
Hannibal, the African prince and great grandfather of Alexander
Pushkin who was brought to Russia by Peter the Great from the
part of Africa that’s now Eritrea. Originally in the hands of the
Uniate Church, the building, which had been rebuilt on several occasions
due to fire, fell into disrepair around the time of the Third
Partition of 1795, laying abandoned for seven decades before
August - November 2012
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