Vilnius churches surprise not only with their interesting architecture, but also with their beautiful interior design, sometimes unique in Europe. This is particularly true of those churches built in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The historic churches of Vilnius do not form a homogeneous group of buildings, as they were built from the end of the 14th century to the beginning of the 19th century. They were repeatedly extended and modernised in the following centuries according to changing tastes. The Russian Partition and the policy of the Tsar and his officials following the November and January Uprisings brought an end to church building in Vilnius.

The first significant buildings in Vilnius that have survived to this day date from the Jagiellonian era, when the city was granted Magdeburg rights in 1387 and Lithuania was baptised. At that time, work began on the brick Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, St. Stanislaus and St. Ladislaus. It was situated right next to the castle, in an area where German settlers had previously lived. At the end of the 14th century, the Vilnius parish church of St John the Baptist also began to be built, and in the western part of Vilnius inhabited by newcomers from Western Europe, the Franciscan Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary was completed around 1430. All these churches were Gothic, monumental halls, as the architecture of Vilnius grew from the very beginning in the tradition of northern Baltic brick building.

Casimir Jagiellon, who ascended the Grand Ducal throne in 1440, was interested in missionary activity among the Ruthenian population and brought the Bernardine monks to Vilnius in 1469. He found a plot of land for them on the banks of the Vileyka River, next to the Orthodox Cathedral of the Most Pure Mother of God. The construction of the Bernardine Church was continued by his son Alexander, using the experienced builder Michael Enkinger (listed until around 1520) from Gdansk. Right next to the monastic temple, the architect built the small St Anne's Church (1495-1501) - a gem of flamboyant Gothic - from the foundation of Alexander the Jagiellonian.

The 16th century was a time of religious ferment throughout Europe, which did not favour new church foundations. However, in opposition to the Reformation movements, the Bishop of Vilnius Valerian Protasevich brought the Jesuits to Vilnius in 1569. The Jesuits took charge of the Church of St John the Baptist, which they rebuilt several times in the following decades. Their activities are also associated with the establishment of Baroque-style churches - St Casimir's (from 1604), where professed monks resided, and St Ignatius (1619-1647), where a novitiate was organised. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Jesuits also built a temple in the suburb of Snipiška (on the opposite bank of the Neris River), dedicating it to St Raphael (after 1702-1709).

The professed temple was designed by Giovanni Maria Bernardoni (1541-1605) and built by his pupil Jan Frankiewicz (1559-1627). Both belonged to the Jesuit order. Importantly, St Casimir's Church was the first in the city to be equipped with a dome. It also had a single nave into which the side chapels opened.

Other orders, including the Discalced and Discalced Carmelites, were also active in the construction field in the first half of the 17th century. Royal secretary Wojciech Chludzinski of Włodków was the founder of the All Saints' Church of the Visceral Carmelites (1620-1631), which was built as a three-nave church. On the other hand, the Lithuanian sub-chancellor Stefan Pac (1587-1640) founded the church of the Discalced Carmelites in 1633, an excellent example of a church inspired by the architecture emerging at the royal court, and at the same time a church with an elegant Roman façade.

Earlier, the Church of the Bernardine Sisters of St Michael the Archangel (1594-1625) was built in what could be described as a Renaissance-Mannerist style by Italian builders associated with the community working in Lublin. It was founded by Lev Sapieha (1557-1633), who gave the church the function of a family mausoleum.

In Antokol - a historical suburb of Vilnius, now part of the city - two important temples of the mature Baroque in Europe were built: the Church of Saints Peter and Paul (1668-1682) and the Church of the Lord Jesus of Nazareth (1694-1716). They were staged by the same team: the architect and military engineer Giovanni Battista Frediani (1627/32-1700) and the stucco artist Pietro Perti (1648-1714).

The first of these churches for the Lateran Canons Regular was founded in 1668 by the heroic liberator of Vilnius from Muscovite fetters - Lithuanian Hetman and Vilnius Voivode Michał Kazimierz Pac (1624-1682). For the construction and decoration of the church - a votive offering for the recapture of the city in 1660 and the mausoleum - he brought in artists from Lesser Poland (the project was given by Jan Zaor of Kazimierz in Krakow, who died in 1672) and from Italy. They created one of the most interesting Baroque churches of the Republic, famous above all for the stuccos of the workshop of Pietro Perti and Giovanni Maria Gallego, which carpet almost every part of the interior. Also worth noting is the columnar - chiaroscuro facade designed by Frediani of Lucca, which is decorated with an ambiguous inscription: REGINA PACIS FUNDA NOS IN PACE (Queen of Peace grant us peace).

The second of the Antokolian churches was built for the Trinitarian Order, which was brought in by Kazimierz Jan Sapieha (1642-1720), Pac's successor as hetman and voivode. The church - a masterpiece of engineering - was part of a residential and sacral complex. It consisted of a palace (1689-1692) situated on a hill (120 m above sea level), five gates leading to a parade and utility courtyard and to a garden (1690), a game preserve, and a church-mausoleum dedicated to the Lord Jesus with a Trinitarian monastery. Giovanni Battista Frediani gave the church an octagonal ground plan and covered it with a dome vault, the largest in the Republic at the time, with a perpendicular axis of 18.20 metres. Taking into account the viewpoints, the architect also planned diagonal towers in the façade.

The year 1733 brought the occupation of Vilnius by the Muscovites under the pretext of an alliance with the Republic and support for Augustus III. In the following years, although the drama of war avoided the city, it was tormented by waves of fires (1737, 1741, 1748, 1749), the most tragic of which were those in 1737 and 1748. They also mark the lower time limit of the emergence of a new architectural trend, characteristic of Vilnius and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which lasted until the late 1770s and early 1780s. It is described with the adjective 'baroque', although its details took on rococo forms drawn not only in stucco, but also in the iron sheeting of balconies and the finials of the towers' helmets (e.g. churches of the Missionaries and Benedictines). In the case of standard - very simple - building plans, great attention was paid to openwork and piled-up towers (e.g. Augustinian Church of Our Lady of Consolation), frayed "attic" gables of facades, presbyteries and transepts, often with walls undulating like the front elevation, which made the massing light. The curved line also appears in the fanciful carvings of the openings and arcades, which are usually devoid of frames and orders, and often the strongly broken cornice clearly cuts off the successive storeys. In the interiors, an expansive baluster pillar supports the music choir, as in the Church of the Holy Spirit or the Church of St John the Baptist. The bulging pedestal also appeared in the altars, which, with their intricate arrangements, introduced dynamism into the traditionally resolved space, unprecedented in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, providing the setting for post-Tridentine services. The most beautiful of the altars are located in the Jesuit churches of St John the Baptist and St Raphael, as well as in the Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit. Attention should also be paid to the undulating, broken domes of the Jesuit and Dominican churches, which, together with the towers, contribute to the lacy picturesqueness of the Vilnius landscape.

The Vilnius Baroque style had to give way under the onslaught of another original school of Vilnius architecture - Revolutionary Classicism. Its representative was the multi-talented and well-educated architect Wawrzyniec Gucewicz (1753-1798). He was active in the circle of Bishop Ignacy Massalski, who was associated with the Commission of National Education, a haggard accused of treason. On his initiative, the cathedral was rebuilt in the spring of 1777. The work was initially carried out by another classicist, Marcin Knackfus, but in 1782 at the latest he was replaced by Wawrzyniec Gucewicz, educated at the bishop's expense in Rome and Paris. The Cathedral, completed in 1801, which obliterated the architectural achievements of earlier eras and styles, leaving the early Baroque sanctuary of St Casimir, which was too important to be transformed, defined the character of the style developed in Vilnius. The city became an island of revolutionary classicism, emerging under the influence of the achievements of French architecture, with greater artistic power than was the case in Warsaw.