Cathedral, Vilnius

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There are a few different legends about when the Cathedral was actually founded.
1) One legend tells us that Jogailla in 1387 gave order that a cathedral should be built on the site where the people had long been worshipping the God of Thunder, Perkunas. According to this legend this should have been the first church being build in Lithuania.
2) Another legend has it that Grand Duke Mindaugas founded it already in 1251, the same year he got baptised.
Many things points out the latter theory to be right because archeologists have found a brick building with a square tower, dated from this time. BUT, even the first mentioned theory could be true. Mindaugas let himself get baptised, but after just a short spell he turned back to his former faith and then he might have had the church demolished.
At any rate, what we see today dates from the late 18th century. A number of large statues decorate the facade, among them the patron saints of the Cathedral, St Stanislav and St Vladislav.
Inside there are 11 chapels, the most noteworthy being the chapel of St Casimir (the same Casimir who has got a church named in his name). In the chapel is the coffin with his body. He died in 1484. Beneath the coffin there is a picture of him, showing him with three hands.
It is said it took the employed Italian masters altogether, believe it or not, 14 years to fulfil the decorations in the chapel!!

The cathedral is open from 09.00 to 20.00, daily.

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Don't waste a chance to visit the vaults of the Cathedral once you're there. Buy a ticket from the watching lady (souvenir stand, right side of the Cathedral), which costs ~4 Lt (~1,16 EUR; ~1,4 USD), and join the guided tour! :) The guide will take you through the whole history of Cathedral, spicying up pure historical facts with some piquant stories from Lithuania's ancient nobility :))
You'll find out that Cathedral was demolished 5 times(!) down to the ground, and rebuilt every time after. Thus what we see today - is already the 6th variation of it... The interior of the Cathedral was remade 11 times and today we walk on the 12th floor of it ;)
Can you imagine that 5th Cathedral was even 10 meters higher than the present one?!?

The Vilnius Cathedral (Arkikatedra Bazilika) or the Cathedral of Saint Stanislaus was not the most beautiful cathedral I've ever seen from the outside or rather maybe its Classsical style was not my favourite. Anyway, it was huge, impressive and surprisingly very bright white building completed in 1801 at the place of former gothic, brick church (15th c.) and earlier wooden church (1387).

Well, the interiors of the cathedral with many remains of glorious history of the most powerful country of 16th century Europe were much more interested for me.

The most important church of Lithuania, where many Lithuanian dukes were coronated and burried had a very impressive front facade in typical Classical style.

The powerful columns supported classical tympanum. What's that?
Top, triangle-shape area of front facade of ancient Greek and Roman temple was called tympanum and usually was covered by frescos or sculptures. Tympanum (plural "tympani") was often used in quite later architecture styles: Renaissance and neo-clasicism especially, which both partly imitated ancient architecture. I could easy see it in front facade of the Vilnius Cathedral.

There were three large statues put on the top of facade of Vilnius Cathedral at the beginning of 19th century: of St. Stanislaus, St. Helen and St. Casimir. They survived Russian tsars, German and Polish troops and all uprisings, wars etc. till, hmm... in 1950, the Soviets closed the cathedral, knocked the statues off and destroyed them.

Then, they were reconstructed (from pictures) by sculpturer Stanislovas Kuzma and finally put back on their right places when Lithuania regained independance.

Surely I wanted to walk around the Vilnius Cathedral but I could see only its front (western) and southern part. The rest was closed, fenced because of reconstruction works of the nearby Lower Castle.

Anyway, pay attention to the two large, impressive and almost identical domes located at the back (eastern) corners of the cathedral. They covered:
- the St. Casimir Chapel - real highlight of the cathedral I liked a lot - on its southeastern corner,
- the sacristy/vestry (closed to the public and fenced area now) on its northeastern corner.

This lantern on my picture was put on the top of the dome of St. Casimir Chapel. Nice observation point it had to be.

The Vilnius Cathedral was and still is the most monumental edifice at this part of our globe, at least in Lithuania and Poland. Its western portal consisted of six very thick (look at my picture) doric columns which supported triangle-shape tympanum.

The cathedral was the most classicistic building in the whole Commonwealth of the Two Nations: Poland and Lithuania.

Surely I wanted to walk around the Vilnius Cathedral but I could see only its front (western) and southern part. The rest was closed, fenced because of reconstruction works of the nearby Lower Castle. They plan to finish the renovation works there by... 2009.

Anyway, on the sothern wall of the cathedral I could see many statues of Lithuanian and Polish dukes and kings. They were put inside niches among cathedral columns.