THE HISTORY OF THE GRAND DUCHY OF LITHUANIA

The term ‘pagan empire’ to refer to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was popularized by the British author Stephen Christopher Rowell, who used it in the title of his book Lithuania Ascending: A Pagan Empire within East-Central Europe, 1295–1345. Of course, it was not an ‘empire’, but a state the size of a large kingdom in its heyday (the nearest real empire was the Golden Horde). Nor was it ‘pagan’ in the full sense of the word. The great princes and the elite remained faithful to paganism in everyday life until the end of the fourteenth century as did the Baltic population of Wileńszczyzna (the Vilnius region). The lion’s share of the state, the vast territories between Polotsk and Kyiv and Smolensk and Lutsk, were home to Orthodox Christians.

The history of the protracted Christianization and religious imbalance in the Grand Duchy is a curious paradox. If we compare it with the neighboring principalities and kingdoms of the region, Lithuania actually places last. Even in the famous fresco in the church of Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune in Strasbourg, which depicts a series of European nations on their way to the cross, a girl with a crown and a banner reading ‘Lithuania’ marches at the very back. It was a long journey that formally ended in 1387, but in reality went on and on.

The history of the Lithuanian princes’ relations with Christianity reminds us of Ragnar Lothbrok’s metamorphosis in the TV series Vikings. He carries a cross, accepts the Christian God, and immediately renounces it, plundering Paris in the process. In the biography of almost every prince before the era of Jogaila and Vytautas, there was at least one such story—or even several. These men were baptized, took new names, and a few years later kicked out the missionaries, only to repeat the whole thing after some time.

But there was one crucial factor. For Lithuania, Catholic Christianity was the ideology of the enemy, the crusaders. For 200 years, the wars of the Teutonic Order with Lithuania were fought under the banner of ‘fighting the infidels’. It was important not only as an ideological factor, but also to mobilize the people and resources of Western Europe.

On the other hand, Lithuanian rulers understood that adopting Catholicism was a ticket ‘to the civilized world’. It included, among other things, recognition from the pope, receiving the royal crown, connections, and trade. Attempts at baptism were a way to reach Europe, personified by their worst enemy—the Order. Why then go to war? The return to the old faith, however, most often indicated that the baptism did not radically change the situation. The crusaders continued to fight, even destroying Christian shrines (for which Prince Gediminas called the Knights of the Order ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’).

From the very beginning, Lithuania did not emerge and grow in an airless confessional space. The military elites adhered to paganism, but Panyamonne, the region that became the ‘assembly center’ of the Grand Duchy in the mid-thirteenth century, already had an Orthodox tradition (Novogrudok, Grodno, Slonim, Volkovysk, et cetera). The mixed Slav-Baltic population was influenced by Byzantine rite Christianity since the times of Kievan Rus. The society of the Baltic military nobility (the leičiai, which, as we have discussed, may have provided the name of the state) was partially integrated into the world of Orthodox Russia through family ties and culture.

There were always Catholic and Orthodox monks who served as secretaries at the court of the pagan grand dukes. Monks were part of the Grand Ducal Council, performed diplomatic functions, participated in embassies, and prepared documents in Latin and German. Next to them were Orthodox clerks who did similar work in Old Russian. Nobody prevented one of Mindaugas’s sons, Vaišvilkas, from founding the Orthodox Lavrashev Monastery on the Neman River around 1260 (it is still in use today). It is curious that Vaišvilkas himself wore monastic robes over his princely ones. This was the peculiarity of the state, in which the pagan Baltic core made up only 10 per cent of the territory in the fourteenth century.

The beliefs of the early Lithuanians have long been the subject of debate. Since there was no written tradition, and the priests did not leave any descriptions. This work was done for them by the chroniclers of Lithuania’s worst enemy, the Teutonic Order (most importantly, Peter of Dusburg in the fourteenth century), whose accounts were peppered with propaganda and exaggerations. Of course, there is also the late armchair mythology created by the demand of impressionable laymen. While the chroniclers of the order usually named one to three deities (‘devils’) in their writing, there are entire catalogues to be found in the texts of the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries!

It can definitely be said that paganism in the Baltic countries in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries was not uniform. It was a living religion that developed and differed from region to region. The chroniclers of the Order say that they did not know the true God in these lands, and worshiped the forces of nature: the sun, moon, stars, lightning, birds, and animals. However, there is information from an earlier period, the Hypatian Codex (this would be the middle of the thirteenth century, the time of Mindaugas). It is said that Mindaugas, having adopted Catholicism, continued to praise pagan gods such as Nanadai, Telyavel, Diviriks (‘hare god’). However, there is a version in which the chronicler confused everything, and the names of the ‘gods’ are actually the prayer ‘Our Father’ in one of the Baltic dialects.

Peter of Dusburg writes about a sanctuary of the Prussians called Romuva (it would later be found in the Kaliningrad region). This was a sacred center for those very Baltic Prussians whom the order partly exterminated and partly assimilated while creating Prussia on their lands. Some of the Prussians were forced to emigrate to the still pagan Lithuania. Romuva, according to the chronicler, was a magnet for all the Balts of the region. The site was in the open air, without walls or stone structures. Sacrifices were made here. In separate hollows of an oak tree were the images of the main gods: Patollo, Perun, and Patrimpus. The symbol of the latter was a snake—a sea urchin that lived in a special basket and fed on the milk brought to him (and you should keep this in mind for later). The picture reminds us of the sacral pagan center in Uppsala.iAn ancient Scandinavian shrine first described in the eleventh centuryIt also closely resembles Externsteine in the Teutoburg Forest, where the giant evergreen ash tree Irminsul grew, which was felled by Charlemagnei Charlemagne was the king of the Franks from 768 and the emperor of the Western Roman Empire, which he revived (800–814)in the eighth century.

A colorful quote from Jan Długosz about folk beliefs in the fifteenth century bears this history out:

‘... After the harvest, at the beginning of October, the people came with their wives, children and families to the forests, which they considered sacred, and sacrificed oxen, rams, calves and other animals to the fire for three days. And after the sacrifices to the fire for three days, they celebrated, walked and danced, spent time in feasting and drunkenness.’

It should be added that during the wars with the Order, crusader prisoners were also sacrificed to the fire, the nobler, the better!

Jerome of Prague (we will come back to him) described the situation after the baptism of Lithuania:

‘In Lithuania, grass snakes were especially revered. The head of the family kept a grass snake in a corner of his house, lying on the hay, and he gave it food and sacrifices ... Further on, I found people who worshipped fire and called it immortal. The priests tended it ceaselessly. They were consulted about the health of those who offered sacrifices. The priests took the offerings and lit the fire at night. In the morning, they answered the questioners, explaining that the shadows of the sick had been seen at night by the fire. If the sick person’s face was toward the fire, it was a sign that he would live. If his back was turned to the fire, it was a sign that he would die ... Then, I also found people who worshipped forests dedicated to devils ... There were many such forests in Lithuania.’

Discussions about Lithuanian paganism, its forms, and especially its pantheon, are still considered to be ‘walking on thin ice’ from a research standpoint. It is a whole labyrinth where multifactorial verification is required, ideally supported by archeology, ethnography, and literary studies.

At the same time, stories of Christian martyrs killed by Lithuanian pagans became no less legendary, in particular, the ‘Martyrs of Vilnius’ symbolized in the Lithuanian capital by the Hill of Three Crosses that rises above the city. According to legend, Prince Algirdas (1345–77) condemned seven Franciscan friars to death. Four were drowned and three were crucified (hence the three crosses on the hill). According to the Orthodox tradition, those killed were Orthodox. According to another, the mountain and the crosses on it have nothing to do with the murdered monks. In any case, the myth of the ‘Christianization of Lithuania’ developed in the following centuries. The number of martyrs and crimes committed by pagan princes in the past grew inexorably.

The example of Prince Gediminas (1316–41) is an interesting one to consider in Lithuania’s religious past. Under him, according to tradition, there were Franciscan and Dominican advisors. In the early 1320s, the prince was engaged in a heated correspondence with various Catholic orders and European leaders on the subject of inviting monks and merchants to join him, thus expanding ties. Naturally, the subject of Christianization was raised. In a letter to Pope John XXII, Gediminas referred to the experience of his ancestor Mindaugas:

"Our first king, Mindaugas, opened his kingdom to the faith of Christ. Unfortunately, due to the insults and treachery of the Master of the Teutonic Order, he turned away from the faith, so that we all now [suffer] from the mistake of our ancestors".

The monks were invited to settle in Lithuania. The prince, for his part, specified that he was inviting monks who spoke Polish, German, Baltic languages (Prussian, Semigallian), and Ruthenian. In other words, it was clearly a matter of a large-scale community outreach.

But at the last moment, Gediminas changed his mind and refused the most important element—personal baptism. What was the real reason and what were the points of disagreement? It’s hard to say, but the papal envoys passed on the following message from Gediminas, who said in 1324:

‘If I ever decide to be baptized, let the devil baptize me’.i In Latin ‘Sed si unquam habui in propositi, dyabolus me baptizaret’

Then comes Gediminas’s programmatic message, who explains his position very clearly:

‘Let the Christians worship their god in their own way, the Ruthenians in their own way, the Poles too, and we will worship God in our own way, we all have one God.’

It is interesting that in this laconic creed, the prince alludes to monotheism and speaks of God in the singular. At the same time, only the devil is mentioned by name.

It is difficult to reconstruct the thought process of the Lithuanian princes of the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries. One gets the impression that they simply did not understand what the West wanted from them. Why was there not enough freedom for different religions? Why should one be baptized and, worse, abandon the old gods afterwards? Why couldn’t they be combined? In the West, however, they often did not understand who the main actors in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were and with whom they should even maintain relationships. Princes too often changed their minds, replaced each other, ruled together as brothers, or perished in feuds.

Jogaila, the prince of Lithuania and future king of Poland, was destined to close this chapter. He grew up among different traditions: pagan from his father, Algirdas (the one who killed the monks in Wilno), Orthodox from his mother, Uliana of Tver. She, interestingly, was the main proponent of Orthodoxy and ‘Russian’ culture at that time, defending the idea of her son’s marriage to Dmitry Donskoy’s daughter and the adoption of Orthodoxy. In fact, one of Jogaila’s brothers, Skirigaila, was baptized into Orthodoxy as early as 1381. He wanted to rule Polotsk, but the citizens of that region would not let the pagan in, so he had to be baptized and become ‘Ivan’. At the same time, Jogaila negotiated with the order: in 1382, he made a four-year peace pact with them, and gave up half of Samogitia with the prospect of being baptized now by the Crusaders.

In the end, a completely different option worked out: the Polish one. On 14 August 1385, the Union of Krewo was concluded between Poland and Lithuania. Jogaila married Queen Jadwiga, a Catholic, and could, of course, no longer remain a pagan. On 2 February 1386, Jogaila became king, and on 15 February, he was baptized into Catholicism with the name of Władysław. His brothers adopted the new faith and new names: Korigaila became Kazimierz, Vigunt became Alexander, and Švitrigaila became Bolesław. Vytautas, Jogaila’s companion in Lithuania, was also baptized and became Alexander.

A condition of the union with Poland was also the baptism of Lithuania, with the exception of the population that already professed Orthodoxy. The process began a year later, when Jogaila himself arrived on the scene with Bishop Andrew of Kraków. The baptism affected only historical/central Lithuania as Samogitia still belonged to the Order (its turn came after the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War, also known as the Great War, in 1413). The first churches after Wilno appeared in Vilkomir (Ukmergė), Lida, Krewo, et cetera.

Jogaila’s baptism in 1387 followed a top-down chain: the ruler, his relatives, the elites, and then everyone else. In the case of the peasants, the rite was as formal as possible: they were baptized in crowds, often giving everyone the same new names. The people themselves could not use them at all; they continued to live with their old pagan names. Much more sensitive was the destruction of sanctuaries, including in Wilno, where the eternal flame was extinguished and holy groves were cut down.

Preachers and monks of various orders poured into Lithuania. Among them was Jerome of Prague, who took up the cause perhaps too vigorously. A crisis loomed, and Jogaila’s cousin Grand Duke Vytautas rushed to send the monk out of the country, reasoning that Christ could do without new believers, but he could not do without his subjects.

As for international politics, diplomacy played a key role. The task of the Royal Chancellery in Kraków was to inform the ‘collective West’ that Lithuania was a Catholic country, that all the claims of the Teutonic Order were unfounded, and that its wars were essentially acts of robbery. The order, in turn, explained to the French and English that the baptism was a mere formality and did not affect the course of events. Moreover, they said that Jogaila himself was, and remained, a practicing pagan.

Interestingly, the trail of paganism followed Jogaila for a long time. Not only the crusaders, but also the chronicler Jan Dlugosz testified to his beliefs. Dlugosz left many descriptions of Jogaila’s life and habits, including strange rituals—the habit of turning around several times when leaving the chambers, breaking wood chips, spitting on the floor, saying something in a whisper, and so on—that shocked the nobility in Kraków. An interesting description preserved speaks of how in the church, Jogaila ordered them to light a candle not only to Christ, but also to the Devil, who was depicted in a nearby fresco. Support from both sides, he must have thought, would be useful.

The ruler who cut down the sacred groves also died in the lap of nature. Jogaila loved nature and was not very fond of cities. In May 1434, he ordered his entourage to stop in the Lviv region to listen to the nightingales in the forest, which was his usual way of meditating. As a result, he caught a severe cold and died soon after.

Of course not! Until the middle of the sixteenth century, travelers and monks left behind ‘sensational’ reports that claimed that Lithuanians were still making sacrifices to Perun, that they worshipped the god of the last sheaf Kurke, and so on. Cartographers always drew a huge snake on a pedestal on the territory of Lithuania, supposedly worshipped by the people. Even in the nineteenth century, ethnographers in the provinces of Vilnius, Grodno, and Minsk recorded the same customs as were practiced 500 years ago: of keeping and feeding a snake in the house and of considering the flint found in the fields as ‘Perun’s arrow’.

The Christianization of Lithuania became a phenomenon for being the last in Europe. There are 615 years between the moment when Charlemagne cut down Irminsul, the sacred tree of the Saxons, and the day that Jogaila extinguished the sacred fire known as ‘znicz’ in Wilno. Why did so many years pass? There are many explanations, including distance from the actual centers of civilization, weak state tradition, almost 200 years of war with the crusaders. Acceptance of Catholicism could cause problems for the Lithuanian elite with the large Orthodox population, and acceptance of Orthodoxy, in its turn, did not bring too many benefits and cut off the way ‘to the family of European nations’.

You can is the first part of the history of Grand Duchy of Lithuania here.