The article describes the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Vilnius Antokol. According to the author of the text, the building was founded by Bishop Sapieha of Vilnius, and designed by a Polish architect, Jan Zaor. (Source: Tygodnik Illustrowany, Warsaw 1862, T:6, pp. 96-98., after: Digital Library of the University of Łódź).

A modernised reading of the text

The Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, with a monastery of Canons Regular.

It is a magnificent temple, a real ornament of Vilnius, and not only in Lithuania, but also in the whole of former Poland, among the most beautiful churches. Although it is not in the city itself, but in the suburb of Antakal, it is located in such a moorish place that it could not be more appropriate and serious anywhere. All surroundings of Vilnius are of rare beauty, but the suburb called Antokol has one more advantage: besides the beautiful view, it is a place especially suitable for a comfortable and extensive settlement.

It is a lofty bank of the Neris, and altogether wide and streamside, ended from the south with a beautiful range of hills crowned with lofty pines. One street, admittedly wide and half a mile long, is Antokol, whose name from the Lithuanian language comes from the fact that it is built on hills. There is something open and weighty about this suburb at first glance, and for a long time the wealthiest Lithuanian nobility tried to have their country houses here. At the very beginning of Anlokol there is a palace, or rather a castle of the ancient Sluszko family on the bank of the Neris, long since extinct, now turned into barracks.

Further on was the once beautiful and grand, though wooden, Pacovsky mansion, near the magnificent St. Peter's Church, shown in the attached engraving. This temple in its overall beautiful style, although not without flaws in the external architecture, built on the model of the Vatican church, is indeed one that everyone visiting Vilnius should see and get to know before many others. It was founded by Michal Kazimirovich Pac, Hetman of Lithuania and Voivode of Vilnius, who, living near the old wooden church which was crumbling in the same place, decided to raise the Divine glory here as a permanent and unusual monument for a vow he had made after successfully quelling a rebellious army or, as others claim, as a result of a miraculous revelation in a dream. Indeed, God miraculously saved him from an inevitable death.

For when the commissar was appointed to devise a way of paying the outstanding wages of the rebellious soldiers, he proceeded to do so: the rebellion of the soldiers was a very difficult task. The rebels, instigated by the most ardent supporters of the military union, having committed a crime against Gosiewski, prepared the same fate for Pac. He was already being pursued to his manor house in Antokol, and in the meantime, hidden in the wooden church of St Peter's, he recommended himself to God in fervent prayer, from where, soon unobserved, he managed to elude his tormentors by crossing the Neris river in a prepared boat. Ii. 1668, on the very day of St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostles, Alex.

Sapieha, Bishop of Vilnius, laid the foundation stone of a new church in Pac's presence. Jan Zaor, the builder, drew up the plans, while Italian artists brought from Lucca, Me- diolan and Rome carried out the work with great talent, especially for the plaster stuccowork inside. They worked on the tein for seven years, progressing from chapel to chapel. Peter Prelli made the figures and heads, Jan Maria Galii made the arabesques and flowers. Both native of Como, they took 200 red Hungarian gold each a year. The painter of the village, Martin de Altomonle, was brought in to make the great altarpiece. The founder generously donated his treasures for the completion of this magnificent church, which was finally completed in 1684; however, it was not consecrated until 4 September 1701. 1701.

The interior of the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul is impressive for its taste and diligence in plaster work and alphabets, and ranks it among the most important in Lithuania. In 1677, by the grace of the same Hetman Pac, the monastery started to be built for the Canons Regular, or Lalalanenskos, to whom the property I see, or rather the sums based on it, also six settlements of his subjects, burghers of the An- Tokolian Jurisprudence, and a tenement house in the city were granted, having already received confirmation for the fief from the Sejm in 1676. Having erected such a splendid monument to his piety and in such an attractive place, Hetman Pac also chose a grave for himself here in the church threshold, having had an ordinary stone with a humble inscription used as his tombstone:

"Here lies a sinner (Hic jacet peccator)." An illustrious man in the country, a true Christian knight, he died on 4 April 1682, universally mourned.and tears were shed by him."

In the left another image of the Blessed Virgin (de Gratiis), with arrows in her hands. This is a gift from George Tyszkiewicz, Bishop of Vilnius, who, having taken a liking to the original in Pavency, brought a copy from Italy to Vilnius and presented it to the Canons Regular during the plague of 1653. In 1803, the monks carefully restored St Peter's, which was badly decayed as far as the plasterwork was concerned; in 1805, they placed a good painting by Smuglewicz, depicting the farewell of St Peter and St Paul, in the great altar, and finally, in 1808, when the sepulchral stone on the threshold was destroyed, the Lalalanen canons commemorated Pac's benefactions with a new inscription on the church's interior.

But another, even older inscription, carved inside the temple in luxuriant letters, puzzles everyone. It has a play on words: Regina Pacis. funda nos in Pace (Queen of Peace, reassure us in peace), and together perhaps the concept of one of the monks having a prelensis to the joke that he wished to express in this inscription at one and the same time with Pac's foundation; but we must forgive him his slip, for the sake of the corrupt taste that prevailed in our country in the 17th century, and for his good intention to thank in his own way the benefactor of the congregation. However, all that we have said so far about St Peter's is its modern hislory; meanwhile, its history goes back to more distant times.

When the worship of Perkun was still prevailing in Lithuania, here on An; lokol, according to the novel of our old historian Stryjkowski, a wooden temple, dedicated to all gods, was supposed to stand on the same site. Wladyslaw Jagiello, Grand Duke of Lithuania, having become the Polish king and having accepted the faith of Christ, demolished this temple and erected a Christian, Catholic church under the title of St. Peter and Paul, and established a presbytery. It seems that one of the land lords, Gastold, contributed to this foundation, because, according to the legend, an ancient linden tree, called Gastold's tree, grew for a long time opposite the church door, because the aforementioned Gastold, a benefactor of the church, planted it there with his own hand.

It was still growing vigorously in 1621 and surpassed the church with its top. The origins of the wooden church are attributed by some local historians to the time of Olgierd. But this is a criticism which is completely contrary to common sense, because the pagan monarch, no one would dare to destroy or establish a Christian church here, especially outside the town, among the wild and fanatic people. This can probably be traced back to the time of Lithuania's rebirth under Jogaila, when the Gastolds, who were as wealthy as they had been in favour of Christianity for a long time, took precedence over other lords in Lithuania. When Alexander Jagiellon ruled Lithuania as Grand Duke, Adalbert Tabor, Bishop of Vilnius, brought the original church back from bankruptcy and replaced the lost fund with a tithe from his estate. In 1594, the church burnt down and the old privileges were lost in the fire.

For several years, the parish, deprived of its pastors, fell under the rule of the Vilnius chapter, and services were held under a thatched roof. It was only in 1609, thanks to the efforts of Benedict Wojna, Bishop of Vilnius, that a new parish priest was appointed, the pious and zealous for the glory of God, Father Peter Korkonos. Korkonos devoted all his energies and income to the building of the church, and within seven years, after unbelievable efforts and sacrifices, he not only managed to erect a spacious and decorative new temple, but also recovered the old funds and brought in new ones.

The church was consecrated in 1616 by Abraham Wojna, Bishop of Vilnius. After the death of the noble Kor- konos, Eustachy Wołlowicz, Bishop of Vilnius, brought two Lateran canons from Krakow and settled them at St. Peter's in order to facilitate his and the parish's upkeep. In 1638, the canons finally took over the church in greater numbers and built themselves a wooden monastery. The funds also increased, as in 1642 Jozef Korsak, Voivode of Mstislavl. 1642 bequeathed the Yakientany manor to them. In 1668 Hetman Pac found the monastic settlement in such a state when he started to erect a splendid new temple dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, as we can see now and as we have mentioned above, on the site, sparing no expense or sacrifice. The monastery was later built, the foundation stone not being laid until 1677.

Two incidents in the history of this church, among others, deserve greater remembrance. It was here that seventy Turkish prisoners brought to Vilnius were baptised with great solemnity after the Chocim victory. Jan Marcin Soliński, a native of Bosnia, was ordained a priest in the Order of Canons. The pious founder at the same time and the kettledrums of military music captured from the Muslims at the Battle of Chocim he gave to the monks for use in the ceremonies of St Peter's Church. They have been preserved so far in the babinic. Contrary to this, the second incident was sad and highly publicised because of the great defeats.

The plague, severely raging in Vilnius in 1653, even more strongly exerted its venom among the Antioch population. At that time, as we have already mentioned above, the painting of the Virgin Mary of Mercy was solemnly brought into the church with a prayer for salvation against this plague. A painter contracted by the canonical priests has painted the images of this terrible catastrophe in a not entirely inferior al fresco manner on the wall surrounding the church with the former cemetery. Those who would like to know more about the spiritual side of the founder of St Peter's Church in Antokol should read his last will and testament, printed twenty years ago in the respectable magazine Wizerunki i rozszania naukowe (Vilnius, year 1841, No. 18, new second post).

There he is faithfully depicted as the character of the uncommon husband Michał Kaźinirz Pac. There is something purely Polish in this chivalrous figure of the Hetman. A brave soldier, an eminent leader, and a pious and God-fearing doer of many Christian virtues, he was very grateful to God for all the blessings he had received from Him, with what love he showed for his comrades-in-arms, and how he was able to assess without envy the military skills of the major knightly commanders under his orders! The Pacas family will always be remembered not only for their outstanding deeds in the council and in war, but even more so for their peculiar and proper passion for artistry in the erection of splendid buildings in the country.

Other lords may have made greater foundations than these (we are speaking here of the battle in particular), but none of them will erect such tasteful temples or such magnificent residential edifices. It seems that the Pacs were racing ahead of the others, erecting ever more splendid buildings. Apart from the beautiful church we have now described, there are so many other mementoes of their foundation, in the beautiful Camaldolese hermitage in Pažaislis, in the huge palace in Ježno, and so on. Even their last descendant, not inferior in the traditional taste of his family, adorned our country with truly magnificent palaces in Dospuda and in Warsaw itself.

Many could trace the source of this tendency to beauty in building back to the Pazzi of Llorence. We, however, will not follow them, as we have many reasons to doubt their origin and, according to the greater similarity to the truth, consider them to be Lithuanians of ancient origin. To conclude this paragraph from the description ofuskicb, we should still have a year, i.e. on St. Peter's and St. Paul's Day, to complete this square. To conclude this paragraph of the description, we should also mention that on St. Peter's and St. Paul's Day, the entire spacious square in front of the church, half city, bordered on the one hand by a street leading from the city into Antioch and lined with pretty houses, and half country, surrounded by wooded hills, comes alive in the morning with a multitude of pious people coming from everywhere for the indulgenced feast, and in the evening with a crowded market and entertainments for the people.

Undoubtedly the most splendid church celebration took place here in 1788, when the indulgenced feast granted by the apostolic capital was held in the presence of the bishops of Vilnius, Massalsky and Samogitia, Giedroyc and even the representative of the founder himself, Jozef Pac, the alderman of Vilnius. The sermon was celebrated by Zienkowicz, Bishop of Aryopolitan, and the sermon was given by Father Karpowicz, a famous preacher of the time, whose historical account of the origins of the church aroused the curiosity of the audience.