Christianity

Lithuania remained pagan until the late Middle Ages and, as such, was an object of curiosity as well as hostility for Christian Europe. Paganism, wrote thirteenth-century Franciscan scholar Bartholomew the Englishman, was "ritus mirabilis". Christian scholars who described pagan rituals did not shy ...

The Battle of Durbė, in which rebelling Samogitians beat the Livonian Order in 1260, is undeservedly overshadowed by other medieval military victories, but it was a crucial moment in the history of pagan Lithuanians' resistance to the encroachment of Christian knights. To read this article, try a €5...

In the thirteenth century Lithuanians had to face an onslaught of Livonian and German crusaders, great military organizations whose raison d'etre was war on non-Christian religions. For pagan Lithuanians, who had just formed military forces of their own, their faith played an equally important part ...

Lithuanians, the last pagans of Europe, took their time to fully embrace Christianity in their daily lives and mixed it with older pagan rites. The religious sensibilities of Lithuanian peasants in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries is a topic of a new study by historian Vytautas Ališauskas.

There were some 13 million Muslims living in Europe several years ago, according to Pew Research Center, and several more million have come from Syria and Iraq over the last few years. Professor Egdūnas Račius of the Kaunas-based Vytautas Magnus University says that religion is not always the right ...

For parents who wish to give their children original Lithuanian names, there is plenty to choose from. Not all Lithuanian-sounding names, however, have Baltic provenance or come from time immemorial, linguists say.

The Western political establishment is hostile to Russia. This makes it all the more important to demonstrate that the Western religious establishment is more sympathetic. Regardless of Putin’s aims, the meeting between Pope and Patriarch has become a landmark event in the history of Christianity.

Lithuania and the Vatican will next year release a joint stamp to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the christening of the Žemaitija region - also known by its Latin name Samogitia - in Lithuania.

The current rush of refugees is arguably the greatest challenge for the European Union throughout its history. One should hope that the crisis can be solved without endangering the overall European project.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė met with the President of the Lutheran World Federation, Bishop Munib A. Younan, who is on his first visit to Lithuania, the presidential press service said.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė on Monday met with leaders of traditional Christian communities in Lithuania and discussed common work in seeking unity in the country and the world.

This year Vladimir Putin's annual address received particularly much attention: the leader of an aggressive state with declining economy was presenting his vision, a state that is a real headache to anyone who has to deal with it.

As Lithuania has been a member of a great supranational union for a decade now, Lithuanians are forced to confront the question of their collective identity, says philosopher Nerija Putinaitė. In her new book, "Three Lithuanian Europes: Nation, Europe, the EU in modern identity", she argues that the...

Jumping over the traditional Midsummer bonfire and searches of the fern bloom in the modern times is more and more often accompanied with shashliks on the grill, full mugs of beer and powerful firecrackers to wrap up the festival.