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Sister Gabrielė, who started the tour of the monastery, which currently houses 24 Sisters from the Benedictine complex (96 for the oldest, 24 for the youngest), said that Blessed T. Matulionis, who became the rector of the Benedictine Church in Kaunas, lived in the building maintained in 1936-1943. While living with nuns, she rescued Jewish children during the Nazi occupation.
House in the Benedictine monastery of the Sisters of Kaunas, where Teofilius Matulionis lived
“T. Matulionis has also saved a world famous man pianist Estera Elinaitė. She and her mother had to be locked up in a ghetto, but the mother took her daughter to Teófilo to take care of the child. Theophilus took the girl to the Benedictine sisters, who hid her.
Do you know how the children were transported from the ghetto? They took a basket, smeared the resin to prevent them from drowning in the river, added food, for example, and sent it to the ghetto. In the ghetto, doctors injected the rescued boy with medicine to prevent him from waking up in the middle of the river. Thus, children wrapped in furs appeared in the Čiobiškis shelter, which belonged to the sisters. Humanity has won. Although regular searches were carried out, the sisters were not shot or exiled. One of the sisters, it is true, because of the distribution of prayer books, or perhaps because a member of her family, a partisan, was taken to the camp ”, revealed Sister Gabrielė.
Sister Gabrielė
When asked if any of the Blessed’s objects had survived, she assured him that everything found would be delivered to the museum, but the works made by T. Matulionas in the church proclaim his memory even today. For example, in 1940 impressive stained glass windows were commissioned and transported from Munich. If you take a closer look, you will see in one place a bullet mark that has been pierced but not stained glass.
The altar installed by T. Matulionis in St. In the Church of St. Nicholas
“T. Matulionis installed the entire altar of the church. The legacy of the Blessed One for us is the daily celebration of St. Adoration to the Sacrament ”, assured the nun, who admitted that there was a great lack of places for the shepherds to receive the children who were preparing for First Communion, so the house where T. Matulionis lived would be renovated.
The interlocutor said that the building was built in 1930, it was inhabited by lay families during the Soviet era. The Benedictine sisters, together with the city authorities, managed to recover what belonged to the monastery, to have a comprehensive complex (rectory, church, monastery and guest house) only a few years ago, by court. When there are strangers on the territory of the monastery, the nuns are not particularly pleased.
Uncovered an archaeological riddle
According to Saulius Rimas, head of the Department of Culture of the municipality of the city of Kaunas, the entire complex of this monastery is protected by the state, therefore, first of all, the nun requested help from the Department of Cultural Heritage to order the house where T. Matulionis lived.
“Combined financing of maintenance works will be applied: the department will contribute to a certain extent, the municipality will contribute to a certain extent. Because this special historical and cultural building was built in a time when waterproofing was unknown, the foundation suffered greatly. Moisture rose through masonry, walls suffered, plaster bounced. It was decided that the building should be managed in stages. Firstly, to install waterproofing. We use injection waterproofing, which is common in the foreign, but for us it is still a novelty. Every 12-15 centimeters, the wall is drilled and injections of liquid waterproofing are made. Other stages: ceiling, door, window, wall maintenance, lighting installation. According to the management program of heritage, this year the municipality has allocated 90 thousand. – Looking at the building, S. Rimas presented the work that was being carried out.
Sister Gabrielė and Saulius Rimas
It revealed that after the construction of the building belonging to the monastery began, in late summer this year, the most likely archaeological enigma was unearthed: a part of the wall, which was believed to surround Kaunas. According to S. Rimo, so far only versions have been raised in written sources that a wall may have run into this place.
“According to experts, the bricks themselves have the same format as the Kaunas castle, so the wall could have been between the 14th and 17th centuries. More research is needed. For a long time it was thought that only the brick part of the wall had survived, the so-called Miller’s Tower, which can be seen near the Kaunas State Musical Theater. If it were confirmed that part of the wall surrounding the city was excavated here, it would be a considerable sensation. It was thought to have more brick walls and there has been no previous wooden section. This excavated site requires further investigation. It must be inspected under the building and under the street ”, assured S. Rimas.
It is believed that part of the wall that once surrounded the old city of Kaunas was unearthed
There are only two towers of this shape in Europe
Sister Gabriele and I stopped at St. Nicholas Church. Sources mentioned that it was built “just outside the Kaunas wall.” It was once considered a merchant church: coming to yomark In the town hall square, merchants came to ask “to sell”, and on their return they thanked “what was sold.
Entering the interior, we move to the 15th century. On the walls – XVII and XVIII centuries. painted paintings, the altar remains as installed by T. Matulionis. Next to the church there is a cross built by him in 1937. The nuns want to restore it, because they may not be able to withstand the coming winter, everything changed.
If it were confirmed that part of the wall surrounding the city was excavated here, it would be a considerable sensation.
„XVII a. S t. The church of San Nicolás has already been abandoned and nobody needs it. King Zigmantas Vaz agreed to hand it over to the Benedictines. The first Benedictine sisters arrived here in Kaunas in 1623. Some time ago Orphan Radvila had raised the idea that if there are no people who pray for a state or kingdom, that state or kingdom will collapse. As a result, all the rulers wanted to have monasteries in their lands for the monks to pray for him, his family and his relatives.
The first women’s monastery founded on GDL lands was Benedictine. 16th century to the end of the 19th century was founded in Nesvizh. The daughters of all the nobles entered this monastery. Sister Ona Eufemija Skorulskytė also fell among them. His father thought it necessary to establish a monastery closer to home; this is how the Benedictines appear in Kaunas, ”Sister Gabrielė briefly told the story of the Benedictine monks of Kaunas, inviting them to climb one of the two bell-shaped steeples in Europe.
Benedictine monastery
Climbing the tower, you can see the 15th century. mentality pediments. Sister Gabrielė and the relics of the monks’ piety were shown: metal belts with spikes, which the nuns wore on their naked bodies. Sometimes those belts had to be ripped off those bodies, they were like adults with skin.
Benedictine monastery
„XII a. The mansions belonging to the Benedictine sisters occupied most of the territory of Kaunas, up to the Kačiūniškės mansion, Paštuva, Pažaisliai ”, and offered to sit on a special staircase, followed by a tour guide who had been examining the archives. of the monastery for several years.
The legend of the disastrous stairs
On the stairs of the monastery, which haunts us, according to Sister Gabrielė, in the seventeenth century. the sisters were desecrated, murdered and buried underneath them during the war.
„XVII a. It was proposed to leave Kaunas in the mid-19th century, because there were only corpses and rot. There is a possibility that several sisters died on these stairs, but en masse, as legend has it. In fact, almost all the sisters were killed in the Vilnius monastery, only a few managed to escape. They ran to the Kaunas monastery and collected their great pain. Yes, apparently the legend was born, “said Sister Gabrieló.
According to her, the year 1864, when the Tsar began to close the monasteries, is very important for the Benedictine monastery. However, he did not dare to abolish the Benedictine monastery in Kaunas. Why?
“There was an uprising of little nobles at that time. If all the great nobles had rebelled … It would have been bad. After all, the daughters of all those great nobles were sitting in our monastery. Therefore, the tsar decided not touching the Benedictines of Kaunas, it only prohibited the admission of new nuns to the monastery. The sisters invented a trick. When a new sister arrived, she had to wait a while. A sister whose name the authorities had on the lists died, was buried under the church and the new sister received the name of the deceased. They checked all the time, and the number of those monks does not change, does not change: immortal nuns are Benedictines! She did not go to extermination, “laughed the sister Gabrielė after revealing another challenge that hampered his predecessors.
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