1540
Societas Jesu / The Society of Jesus
Following the example of their founder St Ignatius (1491–1556), the Jesuits became guardians of the spiritual life of both clergy and laity. They were committed to serve wherever the church needed them, undertook to educate youths in schools and universities, and went on missions to non-Christian countries.
With the aim of strengthening the positions of the Catholic Church in the country at the peak of the Reformation, the Bishop of Vilnius, Walerian Protasewicz, invited the Jesuits to Vilnius. In 1569, several Jesuits from the Province of Austria arrived in the capital and after being given custody of the parish church of Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, founded a college. In 1579, King Stephen Báthory and Pope Gregory XIII granted university rights to the Jesuit College. The college became an outstanding centre for education and boasted one of the richest libraries in the entire Grand Duchy of Lithuania as well as the most productive printing house in the country. The first dictionary of the Lithuanian language was published there as well as the first newspaper. An observatory was also built. In 1604, the House for Professed Jesuits was founded together with St Casimir’s Church. The novitiate was established alongside the church of St Ignatius of Loyola. The work of the Jesuits of the Lithuanian province (including Vilnius) which had its provincialate at St Casimir’s was cut short by the decree of Pope Clement XIV suppressing the Society of Jesus, in 1773. After World War I, Polish Jesuits settled at St Casimir’s Church, and after World War II, St Casimir’s Church was first converted into a warehouse for beverages, and later, into the Atheism Museum.