Opening of Sapiega Family Mausoleum

Church Heritage Museum is opening the mausoleum of Sapiega family for the visitors! Your are welcome to visit it 7th May–5th June 2021.

The Church of St. Michael the Archangel is the first sanctuary in Lithuania built as a mausoleum for a noble family. There are five burial crypts beneath the floor of the church. In some of them nuns were buried, in others were laymen. Leonas Sapiega, his sons Jonas Stanislovas and Kristupas and other family members were buried in the family crypt. The Czarist Russian army, which took Vilnius in 1655, ravaged, burned and plundered the city slaughtering thousands of people. The Cossacks murdered the nuns and the city residents who were hiding in the convent, they also looted the church and the vault with the Sapiega graves. Taking the expensive coffins and burial clothes, they threw the remains in the street.

Four early 17th-century burial monuments for the members of the Sapiega family have survived in the church and are of great value. They show the power, wealth and subtle artistic taste of those who commissioned them.

More information tel. 8 5 269 7800, 8 600 12080, email muziejus@bpmuziejus.lt