Location: 7 km (4 mi) East of Kaunas Map
Found: 17th century
Open: 10am- 5pm Mon- Sat
Roman Catholic Pazaislis Monastery is located 7 km (4 mi) East of Kaunas. This beautiful Baroque abbey is surrounded by Kaunas Sea (Kauno marios) an artificial lake that was created after damming the Nemunas river. Originally Pazaislis Monastery was found in the 1662 by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Great Chancellor Krzysztof Zygmunt Pats who devoted the monastery to the Roman Catholic Order of Camaldose Hermits.
Pazaislis Monastery was badly damaged during the Northern War (1700- 21) and Napoleonic Wars of the the early 19th century. Nevertheless it managed to rebuild its walls and recover from damages. Through its turbulent history Pazaislis Monastery changed hands several times. After failed rebellion (1831) against the Russian Empire Pazaislis Monastery was converted to Russian Orthodox monastery in 1832. The abbey was eventually transferred to the Russian Old Believers, a sect that separated from the main body of the Russian Orthodox Church. Later it was passed to the Catholic Church again in 1920 once Lithuania became independent for brief two decades. Sisters of Saint Casimir congregation from Chicago moved here and settled the abandoned complex. During Soviet period the monastery housed a psychiatric hospital and in 1966 it was converted to art gallery. Today the monastery is returned to its rightful owners and several nuns live here.
Main monastery church was designed by Pietro Puttini in 1712 and named in honor of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It has majestic interior with beautiful frescoes adorning its walls and 50 meter high main cupola. Pink and black Polish marble further adds beauty to the interior of the church. One of the best times to visit the monastery is summer months then Pažaislis Music Festival are held here. It usually lasts from June to August with total of about 30 concerts. Concert admission is about 2-3 US dollars or 6- 10 litas.
The Pažaislis Monastery was founded in 1662 by the Chancellor of the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Christopher Sigismunds Pats, for
hermits-Kamaldulas. Christopher Patz, whose youth was spent in Italy, at
the universities of Padua and Perugia, was a passionate admirer of the
refined Italian Baroque. Intensive construction was carried out until
1674, then resumed in 1712, when the Pažaislis Church of the Assumption
of the Blessed Virgin Mary was consecrated by Vilnius Bishop Kazimierz
Bzhostovsky. According to some sources, the architect of the monastery
was Lodovico Fredo, a monk from the monastery of San Michele di Murano.
The church and later buildings were designed by Carlo and Pietro Puttini
and Giovanni Battista Frediani. The authors of the sculptures were M.
Volsheidas from Vilnius, I. Merly from Lombardy, and, presumably, P.
Perti and M. Zialavichus.
Under an agreement signed in 1692 with
the great Lithuanian clerk Kazimir Mikhail Pats, the Italian artist
Giovanni Rossi painted the dome and lantern in the monastery church of
the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and also painted two images
of St. Eustache on canvas. Rossi left in 1719 without finishing painting
the figures of the apostles over the central arches, presumably due to
the death of his patron and patron Patz. In the dome of the temple, a
multi-figured fresco depicting the coronation of the Blessed Virgin
Mary, made by Rossi in 1712-1719, has been preserved. The figure of the
crowned Mother of God reaches a height of three meters. Between 1718 and
1755 the courtyards of the monastery were rebuilt and new ancillary
buildings were added. In 1755, the church was struck by lightning, the
reading room of the library and some other rooms above the sacristy were
damaged by fire. During the repair and construction work carried out in
the same year, additional towers were erected.
During the war of
1812 the monastery was plundered by the French. In 1828-1829. Lithuanian
priest and poet Antanas Strazdas was imprisoned in the monastery. After
the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1830-1831, the monastery was
transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church and transformed into the
Pozhai Assumption Monastery. The carved wooden altars in the chapels
were removed, some frescoes were repainted, three frescoes depicting
moments from the life of Lithuania and the life of the Pats were painted
over. After 1863, at the direction of Archbishop Alexander (Dobrynin),
four sandstone statues depicting Simeon, Anna, Mary and Joseph were
removed from the facade of the church. In 1915 the Orthodox monastery
was evacuated and the archives were moved to Georgia. Until 1918, the
monastery housed a German military hospital and warehouses.
After
Lithuania gained independence, the monastery was transferred to the
sisters of the Order of St. Casimir in the 1920s. The founders of the
monastery were four sisters of the order from Chicago. In 1948, the
Soviet administration closed the monastery, turning it into an archive,
and since 1950, a republican psychiatric hospital. In 1967-1991 the
monastery was a branch of the National Art Museum. M. K. Chyurlionis. In
1992, the complex was returned to the Order of St. Casimir, at the same
time the restoration of the monastery was carried out. Behind the main
building, three of the twenty houses of the silent monks have been
restored.
There are many historical and cultural monuments on the
territory of the monastery, including the grave of Alexei Lvov, the
creator of the music for the hymn “God Save the Tsar!”.
In 2004,
the Bank of Lithuania issued a 50 litas commemorative silver coin
(authors Marius Zavadskis and Rytas Jonas Byalevičius).
The ensemble has a strictly axial composition, the alley leads to
the entrance gate, behind which a long passage between stone fences
leads to a round platform for turning carriages; here visitors
passed through the second gate, behind which a view of the
monumental temple with a two-tower facade and a dome opens up.
Behind the temple is an enclosed garden with individual monks'
houses and a tower for hermits on a 33-meter axis. The church,
located in the center of the ensemble, has a concave two-tower
facade, dissected by large Ionic pilasters. The temple is covered
with a hexagonal dome of impressive size (13 m in diameter and 49 m
in height), crowned with an elegant hexagonal lantern. The spatial
composition of the church bears some resemblance to the church of
Santa Maria della Salute in Venice.
The ensemble was built of
burnt bricks. Sandstone, multi-colored Carpathian marble, wood,
non-ferrous metals were used to decorate the interior of the temple.
The altar part with a choir and sacristy is emphatically spacious;
on the sides, in recesses, four chapels; the center is highlighted
by a vast under-dome space. The interiors of the church and other
important premises are richly decorated with plastic figurative and
ornamental compositions made of stucco, as well as monumental
painting. About 140 frescoes of various sizes, 6 paintings by M.
Palloni, including portraits of the founder H. Pats and his wife
Clara Isabella, have been preserved in the buildings of the
ensemble. One of the most magnificent frescoes is the composition
"The Dream of Romuald" with its yellowish-greenish color, diagonal
composition, rhythmically arranged figures against the backdrop of a
beautiful decorative landscape.
Music Festival
Every year
the monastery hosts an international music festival. Pažaislis Music
Festival was founded in 1996. During the three summer months, there
are about 30 concerts of classical music, from Mozart to Abba. The
American violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin visited the festival
twice. Some of the concerts are free to the public. Concerts within
the framework of the festival were also held in Kaunas Castle,
Klaipeda University and even at the airport.