International exhibition "Let Everyone Be One. St. For the martyrdom of Juozapatas Kuncevičius – 400", 29 September 2023 to 27 April 2024

On 29 September, the International Exhibition "Let Everyone Be One. St. The martyrdom of Juozapat Kuncevičius – 400". With this exhibition we commemorate the anniversary of the saint's martyrdom. This anniversary coincides with the 700th anniversary of Vilnius, and Vilnius has an exceptional significance for St. Peter's Day. In the story of Jehoshaphat. This is where his vocation to monasticism took place, pastoral activity spread, and here, in the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Together with Joseph Benjamin Rutsky, Joseph began reforms of monastic life and founded the Order of Basilians. St. We can rightly call Joseph the saint of Vilnius: since the seventeenth century he was considered the patron saint of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and in iconography he often stands in the same rank as the heavenly guardian of Lithuania St. Joseph. Casimir.

Jonas Kuncevičius was born in 1580 in Vladimir Volyn, present-day Ukraine. When he grew up, he moved to Vilnius, where, at his father's request, he had to learn the trade of a merchant. In 1604 he put on the habit of a monk – he took the name of Joseph and settled in the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He lived pious and ascetic in the Trinity Monastery. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the empty, abandoned monastery came to life and flourished thanks to his efforts and because of his attractive example of his own life. He became the patron saint of the reformed community of Eastern Christian monks, the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Congregations of the Holy Trinity had a spiritual heart, and the monasteries that joined the union in Minsk, Žirovičiai, Bytenis and Novgorod gathered around it. In 1618 Jehoshaphat became Archbishop of Polotsk. Due to tensions between supporters and opponents of the union, he was brutally murdered in Vitebsk in 1623. Through his life and martyrdom, Joseph Kuncevičius earned the glory of a saint, was beatified in 1642 and canonized in 1867 and became the first saint of the Greek Rite Catholic (Uniate) Church founded in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Today, in the face of war, St. The anniversary of Joseph's martyrdom also takes on a special meaning of unity with Ukraine, reminding us of our common history.

The exhibition not only reveals the story of St. Peter. The personality and activities of St. Joseph, but also tells the historical context of his life, reminds us of the Brest Union, which laid the foundations of the Greek Rite Catholic (Uniate) Church, the founding and activities of the Basilian Order. The saint's jubilee provided an opportunity to bring together the little-researched heritage of the Unitarian Church that has survived in Lithuania in the exhibition. The exhibition presents a unique collection of liturgical vestments of the Eastern rites of the seventeenth century and a gallery of portraits of Uniate bishops from the National Museum of Lithuania, St. Peter's Church. The relics of St. Joseph's relics, the first images of the saint in old publications, early editions of his biographies, and documents illustrating the stages of his canonization. 26 valuables were brought from Lviv, most of them were unique to St. Peter's Church. Images of Joseph, revealing the development of his veneration from the images of beatification in the seventeenth century to the twentieth century.