Franciscan church is reclaiming its splendour

Franciscan church under call of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Piaski in Vilnius is gradually reclaiming its splendour. In the Soviet period the temple got devastated. After 20 years, thanks to the help of the followers, organisations and institutions, the Franciscans are gradually renovating sequent parts of the interior. In autumn of 2014, the paintings on the western wall of the church were renewed and recovered and choir railing was renovated.

Church under call of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Piaski, called the Franciscan church, is one if the oldest temples in Vilnius. It is also one of the most devastated sacral buildings in this town. The Soviet authorities had closed the church in 1949. Afterwards, for 50 years it had been being used as a store and the alter and other parts of the interior had been moved to other churches.

On May 15th, 1998 the temple got back to the Franciscans. This beautiful sacral historical monument in which we can observe rare elements of Vilnius Gothic, was opened for believers and it called for help. Only by a miracle, the 18th c. figure of Virgin Mary, so called White Lady, survived the years of devastation. Fathers from the Franciscan community put their efforts into re-establishing a former greatness of the church. In 2012, after two years of collecting funds and renovational-reconstructing works, the chapel with God-mother of Lithuania – St. Hedwig’s alter was blessed.

In 2014, the paintings on the western wall of the church were uncovered and subjected to conservative maintenance. Renovations were also made on other decorations and fusion of painting on the choir railing. The works consisted of removing over-paintings and over-layers, cleaning and strengthening of the structure of plaster and parts of the paintings remaining on it, as well as of cleaning and strengthening of stucco. Within the scope of the renovation of choir railing unaesthetic and technically wrong former supplements were removed. There was also a supplementation of abatements in the base structure of the paintings as well as a reconstruction of the lacking elements of stucco. During the works some of the layers of the paintings were discovered, which allowed the workers to make the results of the conservation closer to the original colours.

The conservative works were done by Lithuanian companies: private company S. Juršėnas Senoja Fresk and companionship Rupintojėlis. According to the guardian of the monastery and the dean of the church under call of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Vilnius – Marek Dettlaff , the total costs of the renovation was 60 thousands złotych, from which 50 thousands was given to the Franciscan Province under the call of St. Maximilian in Gdańsk by Polish Department for Culture and National Heritage as a part of the programme “protection of national cultural heritage abroad”.

Father Marek Dettlaff said that the temple had been renovated mainly thanks to the help of the followers. Subsequent works will been planned only when the funds for them will be collected.