The Wolf and the Cross

The story of Lithuania in the Russian Empire is complicated. This tumultuous era saw numerous uprisings, religious persecution, the conversion of many Greek Catholics to the Orthodox Church, mass emigration, and the suppression of Lithuanian identity. Would Lithuania survive? What about its Orthodox Christians? In the midst of more than a century of upheaval, we meet Fr. Andrew’s ancestors, and bright lights for Christ shine in the darkness.

Taking a departure from the historical narrative, Richard and Fr. Andrew take the listener on a tour of Lithuanian mythology and fairy tales while themselves taking a walk on the legendary, liminal Curonian Spit, a long sandbar that is said to have been thrown out into the Baltic Sea by a giantess protecting her home from storms thrown by an angry suitor.

From 1569 to 1795, Lithuania was joined to Poland in a single state, a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-religious empire stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea – the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In this episode, we look at Lithuania’s role in this state and especially at the tale of its Orthodox Church, which in this period suffered a massive loss in an event known to history as the Unia.

As Lithuania accepted Christianity and expanded in the medieval period, it became more prominent on the international stage, entering into a union with Poland and becoming even more multi-cultural and multi-religious, including a large population of Orthodox Christians, alongside Catholics, pagans, Jews, and Muslims. Grand Dukes Vytautas and Jogaila give a final defeat to the Crusaders and ponder life on the border between East and West.

This first episode introduces the history, language, and people of Lithuania, beginning with its ancient pagan history, recounting some of its earliest legends and leaders, describing the coming of Christianity to the country, and telling the tale of its first martyrs.

On the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, the little-known land of Lithuania stands at the edge of east and west. With an Orthodox Christian minority whose history reaches a thousand years into the past, Lithuania was the last pagan nation in Europe and once its largest country. Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick introduces an epic journey of pilgrimage and perseverance in the trailer for this documentary series.