Orthodox icons in Vilnius in the second half of 19th and the beginning of 20th c.

During the period of the second half of 19th c. and the beginning of the 20th c. Orthodoxy was understood as the best way of Russifacation in the North-West region of Russian Empire. The old Orthodox churches were renewed and very many new built. They needed icons - the holy paintings, the most important implements in religious practice and this caused the precedent to form local icon painting in Vilnius which is discussed in this paper. In Vilnius there were no professional Orthodox painters so in the beginning of the second half of 19th c. great and famous masters (Ivan Trutnev, Ivan Chrucki, Vasili Vasilev) were invited to Vilnius from Saint Petersburg and Moscow to create images for the local Orthodox churches. Despite all the efforts of government, Orthodoxy Was and left religion of small comunity and could not compete against Roman Catholics and Jews. The icon painting in the beginning of the 20th c. left as an art of local craftsmen and could not fulfill (with the exception of painter G. Molokin) the need for beautiful paintings in the new churches and private devotion. This caused the orders of paintings to the workshops in Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and the appearence of huge amount of local stores that were specialized in selling liturgical implements in the beginning of the 20th c. Of course, despite all the strict canons of painting in Orthodox Church, the holy images were influenced by mass production so the attention is given to the mass printed paper icons too. The main aim of this paper is to show how vast and diverse the icon painting was in Vilnius and to represent the artists that are almost or completely forgotten today. Scientific researches may draw the attention and encourage to save that poor inheritance of icons still left in Orthodox churches of Vilnius