Bishops of Vilnius and Their Portraits: catalogue

Bishops of Vilnius and Their Portraits: catalogue. Compiler and author of the text Liudas Jovaiša. Vilnius: Bažnytinio paveldo muziejus, 2016, 132 p.

The personalities representing and ambodying the Vilnius (Arch)diocese are its (arch)bishops. Like other pastors  of the dioceses of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Samagotia and Lutsk), the bishops of Vilnius had created a portrait gallery representing their institution. Presently the collection of portraits consists of 42 images of bishops. In the main corpus of the portrait gallery of Vilnius bishops presented in this publication, 32 images of ordinaries of Vilnius along with their biographical entries are published. The missing images of ordinaries have been replaced by their coats of arms.

Established in 1388, in the period of Conversion of Lithuania, the Vilnius (Arch)diocese is the longest surviving institution in Lithuania. In the 20th century it underwent two significant reorganizations. In 1925 the Vilnius Diocese became a metropolitan archdiocese in the territory of the Republic of Poland, and the suffragan dioceses of Łomża and Pinsk were added to it. 1991 the borders of the Republic of Lithuania, with the addition of the suffragan dioceses of Kaišiadorys and Panevėžys. Despite these restructurizations, the Vilnius Archdiocese continues to exist without interrruption for more than six centuries – an extraordinary example of tenacity, bearing in mind the historical fragility of the Lithuanian state and its institutions. Thus, the Vilnius (Arc)diocese and its past is probably the only living embodiment of the history of Lithuania connecting the Grand Duchy of Lithuania of the Late Middle Ages with the modern Republic of the third millennium and building a bridge between different epochs, societies and state structures.

The catalogue is published in Lithuanian with a summary in English.

Compiler and the author of the text: Liudas Jovaiša
Special editor: Rita Pauliukevičiūtė
Editor: Rita Markulienė
Translator: Aušra Simanavičiūtė
Designer: Gedas Čiuželis
Sponsors: Archdiocese of Vilnius, Lithuanian Council for Culture, The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, Vilnius City Municipality






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