Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania

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Saint Stanislaus Cathedral in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius
Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul in the second largest Lithuanian city of Kaunas , Archdiocese of Kaunas

The Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania is part of the worldwide Roman Catholic Church .

history

The Grand Duke Vytautas the Great of Lithuania , together with his cousin Jogaila, who later became King Władysław II Jagiełło , created the Polish-Lithuanian Union . In 1387 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the last country in Europe to be integrated into the Roman Catholic Church. In the 19th century under the Russian Tsarist administration, the influence of the Catholic Church was fought in favor of the Russian Orthodox Church. Under Soviet rule, Catholicism was forced to follow its religion underground; religious education was banned between 1947 and 1988. The Catholic Church played an important role in sustaining the national identity of the Lithuanians.

organization

Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul in Šiauliai , Lower Lithuania

Around 2.8 million Catholics, around 80 percent of the total population, profess to the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania.

“Church of Lithuania” here means the Church of the Republic of Lithuania, which is organized as the territory of the Lithuanian Bishops' Conference . The central body of the Lithuanian bishops is the Lithuanian Bishops' Conference . Archbishop Gintaras Linas Grušas , Archbishop of Vilnius, is the President of the Bishops' Conference .

On January 31, 1927, Pope Pius XI. an interniature set up after a delegate . On December 9, 1928, an apostolic nuncio was installed . Archbishop Petar Rajič has been the nuncio since June 15, 2019 . Conversely, there has been a Lithuanian mission to the Holy See since 1922 .

Pope John Paul II visited Lithuania in 1993 after the declaration of independence. This visit turned into a great Catholic festival and met with great media coverage.

Metropolises and dioceses

Lithuanian martyrs

On May 7, 2000, Pope John Paul II recognized these Lithuanians as martyrs in Rome :

  • Benediktas Andriuška (1884–1951), Jesuit priest, died in prison in Siberia ;
  • Baltramiejus Auglys (1869–1932), church guard , killed in Russia;
  • Petras Auglys (1861–1937), priest, shot dead in Minsk in the NKVD prison;
  • Jonas Burneika (1901–1956), priest, died in prison in Siberia ;
  • Severinas Buteikis (1911–1942), priest, died of torture in Kaunas prison in 1941;
  • Adelė Dirsytė (1909–1955), teacher, killed on the way to Lithuania from the Soviet camp;
  • Pranas Dovydaitis (1886–1942), professor of philosophy, died in Sverdlovsk prison ;
  • Virgilijus Jaugelis (1948–1980), priest, sentenced for spreading the faith and imprisoned in Pravieniškės;
  • Petras Kairys (1884–1937), organist, shot dead in Russia;
  • Petras Paulaitis (1904–1986), teacher, spent 30 years in prison for patriotic and religious activities;
  • Elena Spirgevičiūtė (1924–1944), died on defense of chastity;
  • Juozapas Usonis (1867–?), Priest, shot in Minsk;
  • Boleslavas Vėgėlė (1880–1941), priest, killed by the NKVD not far from Skaruliai ;
  • Pranciškus Vitkevičius (1877–1941), priest, killed by the NKVD not far from Skaruliai.

Church buildings

Church of St. Anne ( Šv. Onos ) in Vilnius

In 2006 there were several thousand Catholic churches in Lithuania, and the trend is slightly decreasing. Selection of churches of particular art-historical importance:

literature

in order of appearance

  • Concordat between the Holy See and the Government of Lithuania of September 27, 1927 ( .html ).
  • Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church , 1980 .pdf (286 kB)
  • Pope John Paul II: The Catholic Church in Lithuania and the Apostolic Letter for the Six Hundred Years of the "Baptism" of Lithuania from June 25, 1987 , 1987, in: Working aid No. 53 of the German Bishops' Conference.
  • Saulius Sužiedėlis: The sword and the cross. A history of the church in Lithuania . Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division, Huntington 1988, ISBN 0-87973-416-7 .
  • Martin Jungraithmayr: The State and the Catholic Church in Lithuania since the end of the Second World War . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2002, ISBN 978-3-4280-9969-6 .
  • Algirdas Jurevicius: The Catholic Church of Lithuania (= THEOS - Study Series Theological Research Results , Vol. 63). Kovač, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 978-3-8300-1474-4 .
  • Christina Juditha Nikolajew: On the connection between national identity formation and the Catholic Church in Lithuania , dissertation University of Tübingen 2005 ( .pdf ).

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ "Religion in Lithuania" ( Memento from June 16, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 23, 2010
  2. ^ "Catholicism in Lithuania" ( Memento of October 22, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 23, 2010

Web links