Vilnius, October 30, 2026
Holy Spirit Monastery in Vilnius. Photo: Wikipedia
Two bills that would take historic churches away from the Lithuanian Orthodox Church and open the door to stripping it of its traditional status run counter to Lithuania’s Constitution, according to the Department of Law of the Parliament’s Chancellery.
In its conclusions, dated October 28, the department says the bills, introduced by the Homeland Union–Lithuanian Christian Democrats, contradict constitutional guarantees of the inviolability of property, the freedom of religious organizations, and their right to govern themselves according to their own canons and statutes, reports the Lithuanian Orthodox Church.
Bill No. XVP-1977 would remove the Holy Spirit Monastery, the Cathedral of the Mother of God, the Churches of St. Paraskeva and St. Nicholas in Vilnius, and the Dormition Church in Vievis from the Church and give them to the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
The department says these properties belong not to the Moscow Patriarchate, as the bill assumes, but to legal entities registered in Lithuania: religious communities, parishes, or the Lithuanian Orthodox Archdiocese. Taking them from the Moscow Patriarchate is therefore legally incorrect, the department says, since it doesn’t own them. It adds that the bill names no public need that would justify seizing the property and provides no compensation to the lawful owners. The department also says handing communities’ property to a spiritual center chosen by the state, especially when those communities don’t link their activity to it, amounts to state interference in the internal life of religious organizations.
Bill No. XVP-1979 would allow religious communities to be denied traditional status if their administrative centers are tied to sanctioned states, organizations, or individuals, or if their activity threatens national security or public order. It would also designate the center defined by the canons and internal rules of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as the sole representative of Lithuania’s traditional Orthodox community.
The department says traditional status rests on a confession’s historically established place in society and centuries of religious and cultural tradition, and that, as the Constitutional Court has explained, it’s neither created nor abolished by the will of the legislature. Taking that status away over external ties, an administrative center, or canonical subordination, rather than over doctrine, rites, or continuation of the tradition, would contradict the Constitution, the department says.
The department’s negative assessment doesn’t automatically end the bills’ progress. Parliament can continue considering them, amend them, or reject them under the established procedure, so their fate depends on the decisions of politicians.
For their part, Lithuanian hierarchs and faithful have made it clear that they have no intention of switching to the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
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