Vilnius - Šv. kankinės Paraskevės cerkvė

Vilnius is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of about 600.000. Before WWII, Vilnius was one of the largest Jewish centers in Europe which led to the nickname "the Jerusalem of Lithuania".

The city was first mentioned in written sources as Vilna in 1323 as the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Gediminas, Grand Duke of Lithuania, built a wooden castle on a hill in the city. The city became more widely known after he wrote a circular letter of invitation to Germans and Jews to the principal Hansa towns in 1325, offering free access into his domains to men of every order and profession. At this time Vilnius was facing raids of the Teutonic Order, although they never captured the castle, large portions of the town were burned down between 1365 and 1383. English king Henry IV spent the full year of 1390 supporting the unsuccessful siege of Vilnius by Teutonic Knights with his 300 fellow knights.

Between 1503 and 1522, the city was surrounded by a city wall to protect it from Crimean Tatar attacks. The city reached the peak of its development during the reign of Sigismund II. Augustus, Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland, settled here in 1544. After the foundation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1569, the city experienced a further boom, as Stephen Báthory, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, founded the Jesuit College of Vilnius (= Vilnius University) in 1579.

St. Paraskeva Church is the oldest Eastern Orthodox church in Lithuania.

The first Orthodox church here was constructed at the request of Grand Duke Algirdas's first wife, Maria Yaroslavna, who was buried there in 1346. This church was completely destroyed by fire in 1557 and rebuilt three years later, but burned down again in 1611 and was renovated afterward.

During the Great Northern War, in 1705, with Vilnius invaded and pillaged by the Muscovite army, the church was visited by tsar Peter the Great, who prayed there for the military victory. During the same service, Abram Petrovich Gannibal was baptized. Abram Petrovich Gannibal was a great-grandfather of Alexander Pushkin. Pushkin's first prose work, titled "The Moor of Peter the Great" is about Abram Petrovich Gannibal, who was born in Eritrea or Cameroon.

In 1748, the building was again destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1795 but fell into decline. In 1864 it was rebuilt and enlarged but got devasted during WWII. Although it was renovated again, the Stalinist government didn't allow the Russian Orthodox Church to start holding its services there. At first, a Museum of Atheism was to be opened there, but in the end the church was turned into a gallery of Lithuanian folk art. The church was given back to the Orthodox Church in 1990 and reconsecrated.