I have just signed a contrast with Hurst Publishers to write a history of Christianity in Lithuania, entitled The Church’s Youngest Daughter: A History of Christianity in Lithuania, which will tell the story of the Christian faith in Lithuania from the earliest times to the restoration of Lithuanian independence in the 1990s. Lithuania was, famously, the last country in Europe to formally adopt Christianity (in 1387) – hence its title of ‘youngest daughter of the church’. But Lithuania’s relationship with Christianity reaches back to the 10th century, and for centuries it was unclear whether Catholicism or Orthodoxy would become dominant and whether Lithuania would join Western or Eastern Christendom. In the end, Lithuania was to become the easternmost bastion of Latin rite Catholicism in Europe – putting the country in a unique position that has shaped Lithuania’s political destiny ever since.

Having focussed up to now on pre-Christian Lithuanian religion in my books Silence of the Gods and Pre-Christian Baltic Religion and Belief, it seems logical to turn now to the Christian history of Lithuania. But the book will not simply chronicle the history of Lithuania’s dominant Catholic church; the history of Orthodoxy in Lithuania, the Lithuanian Reformation and the Calvinist and Lutheran churches will receive equal attention in order to provide a complete picture of Christian Lithuania throughout the ages.