Christianity in Lithuania

This collection of essays by the younger generation of Lithuanian historians explores the various twists and turns taken by the Christian religion in Lithuania and other pans of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe. It reflects the impact of European-wide policy on institutional religion in the southern Baltic region from the missionary policies of the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, the Scandinavian kingdoms and Orthodox Rus'-Muscovy-Russia in the Middle Ages to the destructive effect of totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century.
It covers more than just the fluctuations of Catholic life.It charts the rise and fall of a Catholic community created in and for the Grand Duchy ot Lithuania (the Uniate Church); the later essays chart the different experiences or Protestant groups in Lithuania and the fight against and collaboration with the Orthodox Church. The studies are both summaries of recent and not so-recent research which contain useful new insights into various aspects of the history of most Christian denominations in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Lithuanian Republics. Opposition, collaboration, the persecution of and by the dominant confession, issues of national identity, educational reform in Lithuania and via Lithuania in the region as a whole, continuation and rebirth are themes running in various guises throughout these studies.