Holy Trinity ensemble in Vilnius. Past

The origins of the city of Vilnius are shrouded in colourful legends. Lithuanian chronicles of the 16th century recount that Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas (1316–1341) built Vilnius Castle on a high hill on which in a dream he saw an iron wolf.¹Полное собрание русских летописей, т. 35: Летописи белорусско-литовские, сост. Н. Н. Улащик, Москва: Наука, 1980, с. 92, 153, 180–181, 201, 222. This dream appeared to him in Šventaragis Valley, near the mouth of the River Vilnia, the place where the bodies of the first grand dukes of Lithuania were burned. Such an unusual place to spend the night was chosen because that day Gediminas was delayed on a long hunt and it was too late to return to that time’s capital, Old Trakai. The dream was not very pleasant, as the wolf which appeared in it howled like a giant pack of wolves. Awaking, the duke understood that this was a prophetic vision. Lizdeika the oracle explained to the ruler of Lithuania what he had seen: an iron wolf means that the capital will be founded here, and the wolf’s howling is a sign that its glory will echo widely through the whole world. The sovereign immediately ordered that a castle be built on the site, declaring the establishment of a new city for his capital. The city was located in the aforementioned valley near the confluence of the rivers Neris (Vilija) and Vilnia; from the latter derived the name Vilnius.

In this story, Gediminas acts as a cultural hero (demiurge), who creates a new political and social reality. As a rule, legends have nothing in common with or very little with so-called “true history”. However, some motifs of this story are consonant with the results of historical and archeological research. In particular, in written sources Vilnius first figures in the letters of Gediminas from 1323, and that same year is considered to be the approximate date of the founding of the capital city.²Chartularium Lithuaniae res gestas magni ducis Gedeminne illustrans. Gedimino laiškai, par. S. C. Rowell, Vilnius: Vaga, 2003, p. 48 (nr. 16). According to the legend, the place where the duke was hunting was uninhabited; it only had a place for the burning and burial of the bodies of the first dukes of Lithuania. However, archeological excavations demonstrate that on the modern hill of Gediminas the small community of a Baltic tribe lived from the first centuries of our era, but to the very middle of the 13th century this community did not differ from others settled in vicinity, neither in terms of population size, nor its wealth or tools and so forth. It can be said that to the very middle of the 13th century the territory of today’s center of Vilnius was thinly populated.³Kęstutis Katalynas, Vilniaus plėtra XIV–XVII a., Vilnius: Diemedis, 2006, p. 23–58; Gediminas Vaitkevičius, Vilniaus įkūrimas (series: Vilniaus sąsiuviniai, t. 1), Vilnius: Lietuvos nacionalinis muziejus, 2010, p. 56–57. Within the context of European history, it is difficult to believe that a place in which the social, political, cultural, recreational, and – last but not least – the religious life of all Lithuania is played out at a frantic pace, was, essentially, a wasteland, only 800 years ago. Primarily the rulers of Lithuania must be credited with turning this locality into a capital city of a major polity within a relatively short span of time, from the late 13th to the early 14th century. It is credible that Vilnius became one of the courts of the grand dukes already in the times of Grand Duke Traidenis of Lithuania (1268–1282).⁴Artūras Dubonis, Traidenis: monarcho valdžios atkūrimas Lietuvoje, 1268–1282, Vilnius: Lietuvos istorijos instituto leidykla, 2009, p. 171. During the rule of the ancestors of the Gediminids dynasty in Vilnius, on the site of today’s palace of the rulers of Lithuania, the construction of the first brick castle in this country began (1284–1293).⁵Oksana Valionienė, Viduramžių Vilnius. Erdvės evoliucija (XIII a. vidurys – XVI a. pirmas ketvirtis), Vilnius: Lietuvos istorijos institutas, 2019, p. 73, 135–138. At the end of the 13th century, the predecessor and brother of the Gediminas, Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytenis (1295–1316) constructed on the hill close by a strong wooden castle. In the age of Gediminas, the brick castle in Vilnius was further expanded. However, the greatest acclaim to this pagan ruler resulted in time from his invitatation for Christian artisas to come and settle in his newly established capital city.⁶S. C. Rowell, Lithuania Ascending: A Pagan Empire within East-Central Europe, 1295–1345, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 72–73.

The policy of strengthening the country’s economy conducted by ruler of Lithuania Gediminas pulled to the city Catholic and Orthodox craftsmen, merchants and, of course, clergy. The myth of origins of the Catholics in Vilnius was encapsulated in a legend about the Franciscan martyrs put down to record in the 1520s and 1530s.⁷See more: Darius Baronas, Vilniaus pranciškonų kankiniai ir jų kultas XIV–XX a., Vilnius: Aidai, 2010. The Orthodox counterpart to this story is to be seen in the description of the martyrdom of the three martyrs of Vilnius, Orthodox saints Anthony, John, and Eustathius.⁸On this shift see: Darius Baronas, Trys Vilniaus kankiniai: gyvenimas ir istorija, Vilnius: Aidai, 2000. The original text of this story must be dated to the late 14th century, and it must have been written in Greek. The somewhat later versions are available in Church Slavonic. The factual information contained in this description allows us to suppose that it was collected on the spot by people from the entourage of Cyprian, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Rus Cyprian (1375–1406). The information, recorded not long after the martyrdom itself (it is dated 1347), provides the description of the martyrdom with a quality of historical document. Unquestionably, it would be naïve to think of this as a kind of “reporting” from the scene of the event. However, the story itself and its main plot line demonstrating a drama between Grand Duke of Lithuania Algirdas (1345–1377) and his three courtiers, future martyrs, should be regarded as substantially true. Most interesting to us in this context is the fact that the description of the martyrdom mentions the place where Holy Trinity Church was built [1, 2].

The martyrdom of the Franciscan monks like that of the Orthodox courtiers, was conditioned not by a general persecution of Christians but by particular circumstances. The future Orthodox saints belonged to the closest circle of Algirdas, where the demands of obedience, faithfulness, solidarity, and even group conformity were significantly stricter than for ordinary people, no matter who they were, Orthodox, Catholic or even pagan. Christians were not persecuted for their faith in pagan Lithuania if they did not cross the red line set by the grand duke: not to mock pagan religion, not to challenge grand ducal power Accepting Christianity, Algirdas’s courtiers Anthony and John subscribed to another, Christian, set of customs: they began to fast, grow long hair, and not shave their beard. This outward change in their way of life a conflict only when, during a banquet, they refused to eat meat, as it wasa fasting period. Such a refusal was treated as open disobedience to the ruler, and ended in the death penalty, by hanging, first of Anthony (14 January) and later his brother, John (24 April). The narrative of the martyrdom of the youngest of the three saints, Eustathius, is, essentially, the same: when his outward appearance changed, this caused suspicion in the duke that, perhaps, yet another of his courtiers had become a Christian. Eustathius’s refusal to eat meat on a fast day had tragic consequences to him: terribly cruel tortures and death by hanging on a tree (13 December). To make a long story short, we may conclude that the cause of the martyrdom of the three martyrs of Vilnius had this in common: a conflict between loyalty to the grand duke and the Lord of Heaven.

The drama itself happened, most likely, in Vilnius castle, but its culmination, the sacrifice of lives for Christ, ended on the hill which later came to be known as the Holy Trinity Hill. In Algirdas’s time this hill was far from the city center at the time, the castle complex, and here the death sentences were carried out. The first miracle recorded in legend about the three Vilnius martyrs is that after Anthony and John had been hung, no one else was ever executed on that site afterwards. In this way it was as if the site, made holy by the death of martyrs, was freed from pagan power. It is not known where the third martyr, Eustathius, was put to death. His death was followed by a miracle too: no animal or bird of prey touched the body of the saint hung on the tree. Three days later “the newly-illuminated [by faith] sons of the torturer took his venerable remains at night in secret, and with some believers travelling for three days, honourably buried them together with the above mentioned holy martyrs.” “The sons of the torturer” is an allusion to the sons of Grand Duke Algirdas from his first marriage, who were already Orthodox by the time of the martyrdom. Their solidarity with other Orthodox believers demonstrates that sometimes solidarity for common faith is more important than loyalty to one’s father (↑).⁹See more: Дариус Баронас, “По поводу литературной истории Мучения трёх виленских мучеников”, Krakowsko–Wileńskie studia sławistyczne, 2001, t. 3, s. 73–98; Darius Baronas, “The Three Martyrs of Vilnius: A Fourteenth-century Martyrdom and Its Documentary Sources”, Analecta Bollandiana, 2004, vol. 122, no. 1, p. 83–134; Darius Baronas, “Byzantium and Lithuania: North and South Look at Each Other”, in: Byzantium, New Peoples, New Powers: The Byzantino-Slav Contact Zone, from the Ninth to the Fifteenth Century (series: Byzantina et Slavica Cracoviensia, t. 5), eds. Miliana Kaimakamova, Maciej Salamon, Małgorzata Smorąg Różycka, Cracow: Towarzystwo Wydawnicze „Historia Iagellonica“, 2007, p. 303–317.

Over the centuries, the distant event of 1347 became not only part of the history of Vilnius but of its legendary charm. It remains in collective memory thanks to the Orthodox community which existed in this city from the end of the 13th century. Thanks to their religious-historical self-awareness, we also know today about the first non-anonymous Orthodox priest, Nestor, who prepared the three courtiers of Algirdas for a feat of faith, red martyrdom.

Darius Baronas