Associated with the post-Tridentine renewal, the Discalced Carmelites settled in Vilnius, where nationalities and confessions were mixed, in 1626. Their arrival in the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was connected with the activity of Bishop Eustachius Vollovich, who worked intensively for the renewal of the Church. They obtained a plot of land adjacent to the defensive walls for the construction of a monastery in the south-eastern part of Vilnius, which was then called civitas Ruthenica (Ruthenian city). It was a place where the Orthodox element was dominant, and opposite the Carmelite plot was a thriving Basilian monastery.

For a long time, the Carmelites could not find suitable guardians to finance the erection of an extensive church and monastery building. It was not until Stefan Pac, Lithuanian treasurer and, from 1635, sub-chancellor, became the proper founder of their church, dedicating the temple to become the mausoleum of his family, newly elevated to the power elite. The ceremonial consecration of the foundation stone, in the presence of many distinguished guests and accompanied by music, was performed by Bishop Abraham Woyna on 25 September 1633. Ten years later, construction of the monastery was initiated, after plots of land and a building permit had finally been obtained by the defensive wall. Both the church and the monastery were completed by 1652, when the temple was consecrated by Bishop Jerzy Tyszkiewicz.

The architecture of the church

The project, based on the model architectural plans of the Discalced Carmelites, was designed by Constante Tencalla from Ticino, educated in Rome. The temple is single-nave with three pairs of communicating chapels, with a simply closed and blind-domed chancel and a two-storey towerless façade. Under the church there is a large oratory of the Pacs connected to the crypts. It is accessible from the front, with the entrance located under the stairs.

The seemingly modest and typical architecture of the Discalced Carmelites is characterised by its individual character, yet the building cannot be denied elegance of form. The linear articulation of the interior is based on double Corinthian pilasters supporting a slightly broken beam. The slender and harmonious proportions are accompanied by stucco decoration over the arcades through which the chapels open into the nave.

The church was built without a transept with a straight closed presbytery, as the building tradition of Carmelite churches in Spain, but also in Poland, wanted. This impoverished architectural programme in St Teresa's Church was compensated for by the introduction of a blind dome over the chancel, which integrates the interior and at the same time provides a dominant feature pointing to the main altar. This is particularly important given the small number of nave bays and the dark interior (the church was built on a north-south axis). At the same time, even such a dome, which the monks expected to be invisible in the mass, due to strict regulations on the modesty of the building, fulfilled an important prestige and ideological role, being associated with the architecture of Rome. Its existence was emphasised by the layout of the stucco decoration.

The façade, the first in Vilnius, is Roman in form and is realised in a restrained manner, with a tendency towards slenderness and expressiveness of the rhythm of the doubled pilasters of the Tuscan and Ionic orders. Its formal richness is emphasised by the plasticity of the detail in expensive and exclusive materials: Swedish Burgsvik sandstone and Mozan marbles. The makers of this decoration were probably the Dutch artists associated with St Casimir's Chapel: Jan Philippin Wallon and Wilhelm Pohl, whose construction was supervised by Stefan Pac on royal orders.

Although Tencalla was inspired by the façade of the Roman church of the Discalced Carmelites S. Maria della Scala, he gave the Vilnius façade a distinctive element, not only on the scale of the Republic, but also of Carmelite construction. He introduced the motif of a triumphal arch in the lower part of the façade, where he placed the coat of arms of the Vasa dynasty - Snopek - in the middle, above the portal. This was a reminder of the monarchs' care for the Carmelites of Vilnius, but also of Wladyslaw IV's visit to the site. In turn, the Pacs' coat of arms - Gozdawa - at the top of the façade, together with the initials, is an indication of the founder Stefan Pac.

Decoration and furnishings

The interior of the church was damaged first during the Muscovite occupation of Vilnius (1655-1660/61), and then during the city fire on 28 May 1760. The monks, while renovating the temple, decided to remove most of the damaged stucco of the nave vault and the dome. Instead, they introduced a very interesting set of openwork and dynamically shaped altars (1762-1765), which unfortunately cannot be linked to a specific maker for the time being. What is known, however, is that between 1761 and 1764, Maciej Słuszczański created the painting decoration of the nave and presbytery, which tells the story of the life of St Teresa of Avilla and of Carmelite spirituality.

Anna Sylwia Czyż