EXHIBITION "CHRISTIANITY IN LITHUANIAN ART"
(28 December, 1999 - 31 December, 2003)

THE UNITES 

THE UNITES (unitas - united, Lat.), or Catholics of the Eastern rite are the Orthodox believers of Poland and Lithuania, who entered into a union with the Roman Catholic Church in 1596 in Brest. By this Union they acknowledged the power of the Pope and accepted Catholic dogmas, but retained their liturgical practices and the Church Slavonic language. In 1608-1827 the church of the Holy Trinity in Vilnius and Vilnius’ Basilian monastery belonged to the Unites. In 1749 the Unites opened a Basilian monastery in Bazilijonai, in Šiauliai region. In 1795 the Unites had 30 general secondary education schools, 95 monasteries with a school attached to them. The Russian Orthodox Church kept opposing the Union. Nikolai I passed a decree which transformed all Unites monasteries into Orthodox monasteries during the period of 1827-1839. All the schools were stripped of Unites’ patronage and the church provinces liquidated. The Unites reestablished themselves in independent Lithuania in 1919-1940.

The members of the Lithuanian Catholic Church of the Eastern rite were Ukrainians, Belorussians and Russians, very few of them were Lithuanian or Polish. Currently there are five congregations of the Unites, about 150 active Church members. In 1992, the church of the Holy Ghost was returned to the Unites.

The icons of the Unites display a more liberal interpretation of the canons of Byzantine art, and the influence of Western European is very obvious. Likewise in the art of Catholic Church of the period, the golden background of their icons is often decorated in carved or engraved floral patterns. Traditional principles of icon painting are replaced by “western” modeling of form and volume, while canonic composition patterns are augmented by details from surrounding world and elements of landscape. The arsenal of the icon painter received characteristic images of local saints, whose apparels are decorated in folk patterns borrowed from embroidery. The icons of the Unites are often reminiscent of engravings from Western Europe.

Information of the LAM

  © Lithuanian Art Museum, Fund of Samogitian Culture, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics 
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     Page updated 2011.08.12