6th c.
Ordo Sancti Benedicti  / The Order of St Benedict

St Benedict (6th century) paved the way for Western Christian monastic life. The day-to-day of societies that practice contemplative life is founded upon the Liturgy of the Hours prayers (opus divinum), private spiritual reading (lectio divina) and manual labour. Benedictine nun monasteries were first founded by St Scholastica, who was the sister of St Benedict.

It was Duke Mikołaj Krzysztof “the Orphan” Radziwiłł who invited the first Benedictine sisters to Lithuania from Chełmno, Poland, and in 1591 founded a Benedictine monastery in Nesvizh, (Belarus). During the first half of the 17th century, sisters from Nesvizh were sent to the convents in Kaunas, Minsk, Smolensk and Orsha. The first Benedictine sisters arrived in Vilnius around 1620 following an invitation from Vilnius residents, Mikołaj Horodyski and his wife Katarzyna. Soon the Vilnius community significantly grew in size – in 1622, twelve more sisters arrived from Nesvizh.  For much of the 17^th century, the sisters endured financial difficulties but in 1688, Feliks Jan Pac, donated a large estate to the Benedictine sisters which significantly changed the conditions of life for the Benedictine community. During the 18th century, the Vilnius Benedictines began to thrive. The situation worsened again in the 19th century and life grew more difficult for the nuns at the Vilnius convent. Later it went on to remain the only women’s convent open in Vilnius, which also became a refuge for the sisters of other Orders. By 1905, only six elderly Benedictine sisters remained when the Decree of Religious Tolerance was announced by the Russian Emperor, Nicholas II. As the conditions changed, the Convent of St Catherine was revived, and before the war, 31 sisters lived there. In the years of World War II, the sisters hid Jews in the Vilnius convent, which is why, together with the communities of other Vilnius convents, they were arrested, and later released. In 1944, the Benedictine community returned to their home, but in 1948, the Church and Convent of St Catherine was closed and converted into storage space, and the sisters were evicted from the convent. In 1964, the Vilnius Benedictines bought a house in Žvėrynas, and began to practice communal life again. They still live there to this day.