Dėl žemaičių krikšto

ENSamogitia was the last comer in Europe into which the Christian faith was introduced. Roman Catholic religion was introduced in Samogitia only in 1417 by the request of the rulers of Lithuania, Vytautas and Jogaila, and by the stipulation of the Universal Council of Constance. There were many reasons why the baptism of Lithuania and Samogitia (1387 and 1417 respectively) came almost a millennium later than it did in the Western European lands. The main reasons was that the West (the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire) entrusted the Christianisation of our country to the Teutonic Order of Knights, notorious for its violence and brutality. Lithuanians did not defend themselves against the Christian faith, but rather against the injuries they received through killing, plunder, arson, and the attempts to conquer their land using baptism as a pretext. In this paper we seek to present the documents (the originals and their publications) concerning the baptism of Samogitia. The most valuable are the following: (1) the account rendered by the bishops whom the aforementioned Church Council appointed to baptise the Samogitians; it was drawn up on 24th October, 1417 (the parchment is preserved in Kaunas M. K. Čiurlionis Museum). (2) Vytautas’ foundation letters for Medininkai-Varniai Cathedral of 17th October, 1417 and 22nd June, 1421 (preserved ibidem). The author tries to localise Medininkai, both in the wider sense of the land {Land) and the administrative district (volost), as well as, in the narrower sense, the place where all the sacred centre once stood, consisting of the old Cathedral, Bishop’s Curia, Canons’ House, cemetery, and almshouse.It is likely to have been on the hill (in monte) where later, at the initiative of bishop Jonas Lopacinskis, a new brick building of the Diocesan Seminary was finished to be built in 1775. The article also discusses the Christian life of the Samogitians in the 17lh and 18th centuries. The author uses the Samogitian bishops’ reports to Rome concerning the situation in their diocese, published by Paulius Rabikauskas. The Samogitians are revealed as exceedingly pious; they frequented their parish churches in great numbers, willingly took part in the Holy Sacraments, attended holy places during Church feasts and. participated in processions, were generous in their offerings to their parish churches and to the poor, and performed their religious duties during holy days of obligation. Samogitians remained faithful to the Roman Catholic Church and to their ethnic culture.