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GUIDE TO THE
EXHIBITION "CHRISTIANITY IN LITHUANIAN ART"
(28
December, 1999 - 31 December, 2003)
Hall I
The art works and their photographs, the handwritten and printed
books as well as the copies of the seals of Lithuania’s rulers and
noblemen, parchments and
other documents acquaint the visitor with an evolving history from the
baptism
of Lithuania, and the first missions at the turn of the 10th - 11th
centuries to the establishment of the Lithuanian Catholic Church
Province in 1926. Besides the most interesting written monuments from
the M. K. Ciurlionis National Museum of Art, the libraries of the
Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and Vilnius University, the Lithuanian
State Historical Archives, and those of the Kaunas Archdiocese, the
showcases also contain unique documents kept at the Vatican, Berlin,
Dresden, Riga and St Petersburg archives and libraries. The written
and iconographic material together with the commentaries of prominent
local and foreign historians show the chronologically process of
Lithuania’s path to Christianity, whilst highlighting the merits of
outstanding personalities during this time.
The first Christian missions came to Lithuania from Catholic
Scandinavian and Middle European countries. The earliest mention of
the name Lithuania (Lituae) in written sources is related to one of
such missions in 1009. It must be noted that unsuccessful Catholic
missions and the expansion of Orthodox Kiev Russia were the factors
which determined an early collision between the Western and Eastern
Christian Churches in the sphere of influence on the territory of the
future state of Lithuania.
The year 1251 saw the baptism of Duke Mindaugas according to the
ritual of the Roman Catholic Church. It was at this time that the
first Lithuanian diocese, directly patronized by the Holy See, became
established. Mindaugas, who unified Lithuanian lands, was crowned the
first and sole King of Lithuania in 1253. The Christian Lithuanian
Kingdom, however, existed for a mere ten-year period. Following the
assassination of Mindaugas, paganism was restored. Regardless of the
active missionary work conducted by Franciscan and Dominican monks,
during the course of the entire 14th century,
the attempts of the popes, emperors and kings to convert Lithuanian
Grand Dukes to Christianity by the continuous aggression waged by the
Teutonic Order were doomed to failure. It was only after the Grand
Duke Jogaila (Jagieùùo) was crowned the
King of Poland that the process of baptizing ethnic Lithuania started
in 1387. The year 1388 witnessed the establishment of the Vilnius
Diocese. Soon after the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg, or Zalgiris)
Samogitia (Zemaitija) adopted Christianity at the initiative of
Vytautas the Great. In 1417 the Catholic Church Convention in
Constance established the Samogitian (Zemaiciu) Diocese.
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Act of the Lithuanian King
Mindaugas (October 1255).
This document is embellished
with the only known seal of
King
Mindaugas.
GStAPK (showcase 3) |
Letter of the Grand Duke
of Lithuania Vytautas to
the Grand Master
of the
German Order Conrad fon
Jungingen (Kaunas, 17
August 1404).
Vytautas
the Great agreed to be an
ally of the Order but refused
to go
against the Roman
Catholic Church, the Holy
Roman Empire and his
brother Jogaila, King of Poland.
GStAPK (showcase 7) |
Pope Pius XI (Achille Ratti)
Constitution Lituanorum
gente
(Rome, 4 April 1926) on the
basis of which the Lithuanian
Catholic Church Province
was established.
Archives of the Kaunas
Archdiocese (showcase 20) |
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Page of St Jerome Bible
and the illumination picturing
King David.
North Italy or
France, Paris, 13th c.
MAB RS (showcase
2) |
Letter of Albertas Radvila,
Bishop of Vilnius and of
the
members of the Cathedral
capitula to Pope Leon X
(Vilnius, 18 February
1516).
They humbly appealed to the
Pope to declare the blessed
Prince
Casimir a saint and to
include his name on the list of
saints. ASV (showcase
9) |
Title page to the diary
A Pilgrimage to Jerusalem
by
Duke Mikalojus Kristupas
Radvila the Orphan, Governor
(Voivode) of
Vilnius and the
Grand Marshal of Lithuania
(Germany, Braunsberg,
1601).
MAB RS |
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Title page to the Postilla.
Vilnius, Academy Printers, 1599.
It is one of the first Catholic boks
to be printed in Lithuanian.
Canon Mikalojus Dauksa,
administrator of the Samogitian
Diocese, one
of the founders of
the written Lithuanian language,
prepared and wrote
a preface
to the book. VUB RSS |
Statues of the Brotherhood of
Youth under the Vilnius United
Church
and the title page to
the book with the list of the
members TY????IA
albo
Congregatio. 17th - 18 th c.
(showcase 16). MAB RS |
Facsimile fragment of the
Quedlinburg Annals (1025),
copy from
the 16th c.: St Brun
Boniface, Archbishop and monk,
was killed on the
border of
Russia and Lithuania
by pagans in 1009.
SLBStUB (showcase
1) |
The baptism of Lithuania opened the door to Western civilization,
stimulated the spread of the written language and the formation of the
school system. The oldest early 14th century
manuscripts in Lithuanian are prayers. The Reformation gave birth to
the first Lithuanian book Catechism by Martynas Mazvydas
(Mosvidius) published in Königsberg. The Counter-Reformation (the
Catholic Church Reform) particularly strengthened by the Jesuit Order,
resulted in the founding of a university in 1579 in Vilnius. In the
late 16th century, the first Catholic books were published in Vilnius,
namely: Catechism (1595) and Postilla
(1599) translated from Polish by Mikalojus Dauksa. Since the
establishment of the Lithuanian state, one of the major goals was the
restoration and consolidation of the Christian Church unity within a
multi-confessional and multi-national society. This was attempted by
more than one Lithuanian ruler. It was partly realized in 1596 in
Brasta (Brest-Litovsk) due to the formation of the union between the
Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The union laid a foundation for the
Uniats Church, which has preserved its vitality up to the present day.
The victory of the Catholic Church in overcoming the Reformation in
Lithuania was symbolized by the official recognition of Prince Casimir
as a saint in 1602.
In the late 18th century with the decline of the Lithuanian-Polish
Commonwealth, Duke Ignas Jokubas Masalskis (Massalski), Bishop of
Vilnius, exerted a great influence on the expansion of parish schools
and educational and teaching reform. He also financed the classical
reconstruction of the Vilnius Cathedral. In the 19th century, under
the occupation conditions of the Russian Empire, Motiejus Valancius,
Bishop of Samogitia and the author of the Samogitian Diocese,
was the greatest authority on Lithuania’s spiritual life. In 1926,
the Lithuanian Catholic Church Province was established with the seat
of the Metropolitan Archbishop in Kaunas (Vilnius was occupied by the
Poles at that time). In 1988, following a 400 year-long break, Pope
John Paul II appointed a second Cardinal after Jurgis Radvila -
Vincentas Sladkevicius, who up to his death in 2000 was the patron of
the exhibition Christianity in Lithuanian Art.
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