Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas

St. Nicholas Church is one of the oldest Eastern Orthodox churches in Vilnius, Lithuania.

According to a popular legend, the first wooden Orthodox chapel located on the place of today's St. Nicholas church was built around 1340. Seven years later, the Vilnius martyrs were supposedly buried there. However, in 1350, Uliana of Tver, the second wife of prince Algirdas, ordered to build a new brick church. In 1514, this church was again replaced with a larger one. It remained Orthodox up to 1609, when, like most of Vilnius Orthodox churches, it was given to the Uniates on a personal order of the king Sigismund III Vasa.

Around 1740 the church was completely destroyed by fire and rebuilt in Baroque style. In 1839, the Russian local government closed the Uniate parish and given the building back to the Orthodox.