St. George's Church, Kaunas, Lithuania

The church of St. George was part of the Bernardine Monastery. The first wooden church was built in 1468. It was replaced by the current brick church in the late 15th century and completed before 1503. It’s been ruined by fire three times, suffered the wrath of the Moscow army during the war of 1656-1659 and then had a bit of a rest during the 18th century before Napoleon turned it into a warehouse.

During Soviet times, the church was used to store medicine. It was returned to the Friars in 1993 in a pretty shabby condition, and restoration of its outstanding if run-down Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque interior has been slow to say the least. Ongoing restoration work has seen the addition of a new roof although the church itself remains locked for the foreseeable future.

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Religious sites in Lithuania

User Reviews

Algirdas Tamulis (3 years ago)
Tai yra viena seniausių bažnyčių Kauno senamiestyje (pradėta statyti 1471m., o 1503 jau veikė. Sovietmečiu čia ir vienuolyne buvo medicinos mokykla Nuo 2009 restauruojama ir vis gražėja. Vyksta pamaldos.

Ramon Marcadar (3 years ago)
Bardzo ładny kościół Szkoda że w czasie remontu ciekawe wyposażenie wnętrz niesamowita atmosfera.

Migle Miskelyte (3 years ago)
Pati nuostabiausia,silciausia,jaukiausia baznycia Kaune,nuostabiausi Kunigai myliu juos bei sia Baznycia

Raimis Raimiss (4 years ago)
Ok

Meduolis MD (4 years ago)
Still on renovation but great never the less.

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The Kalozha church of Saints Boris and Gleb is the oldest extant structure in Hrodna. It is the only surviving monument of ancient Black Ruthenian architecture, distinguished from other Orthodox churches by prolific use of polychrome faceted stones of blue, green or red tint which could be arranged to form crosses or other figures on the wall.

The church is a cross-domed building supported by six circular pillars. The outside is articulated with projecting pilasters, which have rounded corners, as does the building itself. The ante-nave contains the choir loft, accessed by a narrow gradatory in the western wall. Two other stairs were discovered in the walls of the side apses; their purpose is not clear. The floor is lined with ceramic tiles forming decorative patterns. The interior was lined with innumerable built-in pitchers, which usually serve in Eastern Orthodox churches as resonators but in this case were scored to produce decorative effects. For this reason, the central nave has never been painted.

The church was built before 1183 and survived intact, depicted in the 1840s by Michał Kulesza, until 1853, when the south wall collapsed, due to its perilous location on the high bank of the Neman. During restoration works, some fragments of 12th-century frescoes were discovered in the apses. Remains of four other churches in the same style, decorated with pitchers and coloured stones instead of frescoes, were discovered in Hrodna and Vaŭkavysk. They all date back to the turn of the 13th century, as do remains of the first stone palace in the Old Hrodna Castle.

In 2004, the church was included in the Tentative List of UNESCO"s World Heritage Sites.

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