vilnius

There are holes in the sides of Vilnius's buildings. Sometimes at street level, sometimes near entrances, sometimes facing allies. Regularly rectangular, so you know they're there on purpose.

Proof of age, reminders of reconstruction, testaments to history. Some buildings wear them proudly. Others -- whose holes are less regular, less rectangular, less on purpose -- stand firmly despite the holes.

At the top of the hill was a large church, its yellow paint a faint memory. In the niches on the facade, the ghosts of a frescoed Jesus and his saints. A once grand triple set of steps slumped from the door to the ground.

A paper tacked on the front door announced mass times in unfamiliar alphabets. Greek Catholics worship here, as they did when the church was built centuries ago. But when the Russians moved in they claimed this church, suppressing in this way what they believed to be a covert Catholic conversion operation targeting Orthodox peasants. The Uniate or Ukranian Church, a recognised practice within Roman Catholicism, wouldn't regain legal status -- and control of this Church of the Holy Trinity -- until the fall of the Soviet Union.


The history is in the walls. Heaters fixed on green paint, peeling away to reveal bright geometric patterns and carefully carved Greek letters.

Scaffolding, hanging wires, arched window frames piled in corners. A desk for an alter, school rows for pews, mismatched rugs covering mismatched floors. Wood panels hiding piles of scrap wood, garbage, ornaments.

This is the hidden story of may of Vilnius' churches and chapels, gothic and baroque, Catholic and Orthodox. The old town's skyline is defined by pristine steeples, freshly painted bell towers and copper onion domes not yet oxidised. Gaps have been filled, edges smoothed, character whitewashed. 'Restored' -- to sterility.