200px, All Saints Church All Saints Church ( lt, Visų Šventųjų bažnyčia, pl, Kościół Wszystkich Świętych, address: Rūdninkų St. 20/1) is a Baroque-style church in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

, Lithuania. All Saints church was built between 1620 and 1630 and was adopted for

Carmelites , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Ca ...

' needs. In the second half of the 17th century, the church was linked with a

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whi ...

and formed a single complex.

History

A large old-regulation Carmelite monastery adjoins the church; it is built by adapting existing buildings. In 1631–32, the main two-storey building following the street was completed; there are also several buildings of a later period and a tow-storey novitiate house with a small courtyard at the city wall. In the 16th–18th centuries they actively participated in public life, held religious feasts and processions. In 1819 the Carmelites established a parochial school in the monastery. In 1908 vicar Petras Kraujalis started to preach in Lithuanian, which was opposed by Polish clergy. The Church of all Saints is at the end of a street where the main gate to the Jewish ghetto was. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, there was a tunnel through the sewers connecting the church with the ghetto. The priest of the church would provide bread to be taken into the ghetto through the tunnel. He also hid some Jews smuggled out of the ghetto through the tunnel. There were also Christian Lithuanians who helped smuggle

Litvaks Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent area ...

food into the ghetto. In Soviet times the church housed a museum of folk art after the reconstruction between 1967 and 1975.

Architecture

The bell tower is high and massive with elaborate decorations. After a fire in the 18th century, it was restored and finished with a

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

-style dome roof. Marcin Knackfus prepared project for the church's altar. Above the high altar rises another altar reminiscent of a royal throne with a canopy. A belfry was erected and the sculptures in the interior were created in the 18th century. In 1859 the polychrome interior décor was enriched. East of the church lies a square, in which the Convent of the Barefoot Carmelites once stood alongside a Baroque Church of St. Joseph the Betrothed established in 1638 by the Vice-Chancellor of the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Lit ...

Stephen Pac. Its exterior was reminiscent of the Church of St. Theresa, Vilnius.Prof.

Tomas Venclova Tomas Venclova (born 11 September 1937) is a Lithuanian poet, prose writer, scholar, philologist and translator of literature. He is one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. In 1977, following his dissident activities, ...

. VILNIUS; R. Paknys Publishing House, In 1877 the Church of St. Joseph the Betrothed was demolished by the

tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...

's order, to be replaced by a market (presently it is a square).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:All Saints Church, Vilnius Roman Catholic churches in Vilnius Baroque church buildings in Lithuania