Hotels near Girdiškė Church of Our Lady of the Snows

Girdiškė has the only church in Lithuania dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows, and the only pair of altars in the country that look like they are still growing. In 1930 the parish priest Kazimieras Andriukaitis had four large oaks felled, hauled in by horse and stripped of bark, then assembled them into two side altars whose branches form the niches holding the statues and paintings. He said openly that he wanted to match what Dionizas Poška had done with an oak trunk 4 km away in Bijotai.

The parish was established in 1804. The wooden church that stood here burned down in December 1909, and the neo-Gothic brick replacement on a Latin cross plan was consecrated over three days at the start of June 1928 by Bishop Justinas Staugaitis. The building is normally open around Sunday services and by arrangement with the parish. On 5 August the Snygena feast fills it, and white paper is scattered over the congregation to stand in for the miraculous August snowfall behind the dedication.

Pro Tip: Come on a bright morning. The oak altars sit in the side bays with no dedicated lighting, and in flat winter light the branchwork reads as a brown tangle instead of the sculpture it is.