Dvasingumo ir etniškumo atspindžiai Šv. Kazimierui skirtuose apeiginiuose papročiuose Lietuvoje

Abstract

The Liturgy of the Catholic Church consists of the Holy Mass and additional devotional practices, or folk devotions, performed outside the Mass in the local language. These devotional practices or folk rituals are used by the local people. Nowadays we can find these practices in the Church calendar, among the prayers, hymns and songs of national feasts, memorable days or additional devotions (Hours of Our Lady, the Rosary of Our Lady and of Jesus’ Name, performed orally or by singing, Samogitian Calvaries, Stations of the Cross, Lamentations on the Passions of Christ and Mourning Psalms in commemoration of the dead. Among them, there are feasts of different Lithuanian saints and the blessed. A saint or a blessed one is a person because of his or her special characteristics treated as a very religious personality. In the course of centuries, Lithuania had a lot of prominent people, wise rulers, brave men or sages. But it never had or has many saints, at Dvasingumo ir etniškumo atspindžiai... 83 least those publicly proclaimed as such. There are only two officially recognized as blessed persons – the archbishop Jurgis (George) Matulaitis and Mykolas (Michael) Giedraitis. There is a woman – Barbora Žagarietė – with a fame of sanctity among the local people, who worshiped her as a saint for some centuries, creating different forms of rituals and devotions, but still she is not an official saint. The only declared saint in Lithuania is St. Casimir, in different ethnic regions honoured by different devotions. There are quite a lot scientific materials about the cult of St. Casimir either in Lithuania or all over the world, but very little is said about the folk devotions and rituals concerning St. Casimir, except the author’s material presented in the textbook “Catholic Folk Devotional Practices in Lithuania” (2004) and materials of summer expeditions of 1995–2000[...].