Vilnius Old Believers' Community - Experiences in the Soviet Period and Today

Vilnius district of Naujininkai is a relatively small, little explored and a truly contrastive neighbourhood, containing the whole range of unchanged architecture since the last century, its social layers with their issues, its railway and most interestingly its communities. Its contrasts and frequent associations with impoverishment were the main reasons for my inspiration to get better acquainted with Naujininkai. It is home to Lithuania’s largest community of Old Believers – a branch of Russian Orthodox believers who split from the Eastern Orthodox Church in the 17th Century. They escaped persecution and found refuge in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania where they settled and continued living since then.  Through the centuries, the period of atheism, and into the 21st century, the Old Believers’ community seems to have been unaffected and their religious rituals practically unchanged to this day. Therefore, my aim is to find out the reasons for this stability, also see deeper into the way they lived in Soviet times and the way Old Believers live today.

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