Easter Sunday in Ukmerge

It's still winter in Lithuania now. The trees are bare. 

Ukmerge is bleak and boring, but boring is another word for peaceful.  I loved it but I only spent a couple of hours there. It might pall in time.

The church was filled to overflowing for 8 o'clock Mass on Easter Sunday and the Holy Sacrament was carried in procession into the church. But the Latin Mass that was said since the Duke of Lithuania exchanged paganism for Catholicism for reasons of national security is said no longer. Now Mass is in Lithuanian and the priest faces the people.  It's impossible to exaggerate what a change that makes to everything. Religion not economics is the basis of culture.

Lithuania was the last country in Europe to become Christian, in the 14th century, after the Pope launched a crusade against the country. They had a different sort of Pope in those days. But you still see traces of pagan influence.

Paganism with a baroque surface.  Lithuania was the very wild east. Now it seems fairly manicured thanks to Scandinavian investors and European Union money but this is the easternmost edge of Catholic Europe. Here it's easy to feel horror about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's reminiscent of Soviet troops killing brave protesters in Vilnius in 1991.