1209
Ordo Fratrum Minorum Conventualium / The Order of Friars Minor Conventual

St Francis was fascinated with the gospel and Christ, whom he wanted to follow in the way he had heard described in the invitation of the Gospel of Mathew at the chapel of Portiuncula – that is, to go and preach the Good News with no walking stick or shoes, no belt, and not even a spare shirt. His personal experience was where the history of one of the largest and most historically significant brotherhoods began.

The Franciscans had settled in Vilnius even before the country’s conversion to Christianity. The friar, Adolf, took part in the coronation of King Mindaugas in 1253. Two of the earliest churches of the Friars Minor Conventual in Vilnius, date back to pre-Christian times: the Gothic churches of St Nicholas of Myra, and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The latter church was where the earliest convent in Vilnius was founded. It was the most important monastery for the Friars Minor in the entire Franciscan Province of St Casimir, which itself was established in Lithuania in 1686. In 1864, when the Russian tsarist administration suppressed the monastery, the Friars Minor Conventuals were scattered and the church was desecrated. The friars returned to Vilnius in 1919 but their stay was interrupted by the Soviet Occupation in 1945 and the church was turned into an archive storage facility for a second time. In 1998, the church was returned to the Conventual Franciscans.