Basilian Monastery Gate

The Lithuanian capital has long connected Eastern and Western Europe, and people of many nationalities and cultures have lived here peacefully side by side. A striking example is the ornate Basilian Gate in the Old Town – an amazing sight of dynamically rising verticals and pulsating planes. It was designed for Catholics by a Protestant, Johann Christoph Glaubitz. Catholics and Protestants are two very different poles of Christianity, yet this did not bother the architect at all, and today behind the gate he created stands the house of prayer of the Basilian order, where Greek Catholics (Uniates) still hold services. This is the name for Christians who keep the Byzantine rite, their own traditions and language while recognising the Pope. In Soviet times the occupiers simply closed the church. So that its vast, spacious rooms would not stand empty, a building materials testing laboratory was set up here. In 1991 the church was returned to the Greek Catholic community. Today the gate and the church have been renovated and stand right next to the Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose miraculous image you can see even from the street.