ST JOSAPHAT – APOSTLE OF UNITY

August 24, Thursday

Vilnius Holy Trinity Church, 19:00   

Chamber Orchestra AIDIJA

Artistic Director and Senior Conductor R. GRAŽINIS

Planned performance of the SONG TIME QUINTET (Ukraine) vocal collective

Before the concert, historian LIUDAS JOVAIŠA and musicologist JONAS VILIMAS will introduce the figure of St Josaphat, his activities and the early church chanting tradition.

Ukraine-born Ioann Kuntsevych (ca 1580–1623) matured in Vilnius to become the eminent clergyman Josaphat Kuntsevych. The ideas he spread and his deeds laid the foundations for values that would be nurtured by modern democratic society. A reformer of the Basilian Order, he was devoted to the establishment of the Uniate Church and unity with the Christian Church (for which he was killed by angry civilians in Vitebsk). He was declared Blessed in 1643 and was canonised as a saint in 1867, directly linking Lithuania with Ukraine. 

Today, as Europe recalls the victims of Stalinism and Nazism, Lithuania – the Baltic Way, the international community – the abolition of slave routes and the slave trade, and as Ukraine still fights for the right to celebrate its Independence Day, St Josaphat embodies unity as the source of our strength. Let us experience and feel it in music – the world’s universal language.

Programme features sacred music and Lithuanian and Ukrainian folk song arrangements by 20th–21st-century composers.

Free admission