Tautinių mažumų sakralinis paveldas

ENA significant part of Lithuanian sacral heritage consists of sacral buildings of various ethnic communities (the so-called ethnic minorities) - Russian, Jewish, Karaite and Tartar. The town of Panevėžys until World War I and during the interwar period can be called a multicultural city. Its inhabitants belonged to various religious communities and took care of sacral buildings. Most abundant was the Jewish community, and the smallest ones - those of Karaites and Tatars. The Russians in terms of religion were not unified; they had two communities - Orthodox and Old Believers. The construction traditions and architecture of Lithuanian Orthodox and Old Believer churches differ due to certain objective conditions, which led to the integration of the two communities into the Lithuanian cultural media, and peculiarities of liturgy. Before World War II even a dozen Jewish houses of worship stood in Panevėžys, and there was a Karaite kenesa. The Tatar community in Panevėžys was rather small, apparently because of the fact that the mosque was not built in the town. It is evident that population changes had a direct impact on the extinction of many sacral buildings. To this day, only the Orthodox and Old Believer churches remained active from the number of former ethnic minorities' sacral buildings. Karaite kenesa was demolished, some synagogues were destroyed, and the remaining Jewish synagogues and educational buildings were rebuilt and lost their authenticity. About the architecture of extinct Jewish synagogues and kenesa we can learn only from the available iconographic material.