Šv. Kazimiero Bažnycia / Church of St. Casimir - Vilnius (Lithuania) - Philatelic Photographs on Waymarking.com

This Lithuanian post stamp issued in 2005 depicts monumental Church of St. Casimir (Šv. Kazimiero Bažnycia), one jewels of the Baroque architecture of Lithuaninan capital Vilnius.

Church of St. Casimir in many ways represents turbulent history of Lithuania itself. Founded by the Jesuits and dedicated to Lithuania’s patron saint Prince Casimir Jagiellon (1458-1484), construction on the building began in 1604 and was completed in 1635. Povilas Bokša, the assistant provincial and Jan Prockowicz, a Jesuit architect oversaw the work. Burnt to the ground just 20 years later when the Russians invaded in 1655, conflagration visited twice again within the next century in 1709 and 1749 before the architect, mathematician and astronomer Tomas Žebrauskas (1714-1758) restored it to more or less the form it's seen in today. Over the centuries the church fell into the hands of the Augustinians, Napoleon’s Grande Armée, the Russian Orthodox Church, the Lutherans and others, including the Soviets who turned the whole place into a museum of atheism no less. Returned to the Catholic Church in 1988, the building was consecrated in 1991 and has since undergone a massive renovation project. Of particular interest inside are three late Baroque altars and a recently discovered 17th-century crypt containing dark bas-reliefs featuring miscellaneous religious motifs.