Lithuania is rich with ancient traditions and the Lithuanian language is most archaic one in Europe. Pagan faith is reviving now.

Official and dominant religion in Lithuania is Roman Catholic but other faiths are tolerated as well. Lithuanians trust the Church (meaning Catholic) sometimes in the first place in such kind of “Trusted institution” surveys. It seems people are very religious, celebrating all the Christian festivities. In fact it is so, but not everybody knows that common Lithuanian Christian festivities are purely pagan, they are only called by the saint names. Historically Lithuanians were the last non-Christians in Europe. They were baptized only at the end of 14th century; and some groups of Lithuanians even in 15 century. The Baptizing process was deceitful: new woolen garments were promised to people who would come and dive into the water. After diving they came out with names as Peter, Paul, Maria etc., but successfully forgot their new faith and continued believing in old gods and traditions. Situation remained the same until the 19th century, when some isolated villages were found with inhabitants, who had not heard about Jesus Christ. The situation of Christianity today is also quite interesting. Lithuanian Catholic Church authorities do not like to obey the liberal policy of the Pope John Paul II. It is said sometimes, that Lithuanians were the last pagans and will be the last Catholics in Europe. All the Lithuanian festivals are pagan. Some names were changed, but the rituals remained almost the same. Only Lithuanian gods and mythology were forgotten. Now more and more attention is paid to the revival of old faith and world-view. Until now this attempt has been quite successful due to ”Romuva”, which organizes all the pagan festivities, lectures, concerts and pagan camps. The source of Lithuanian old faith is not very trustable - personal experience, rich folklore and Lithuanian world-view. There are no written sources about faith, because Lithuanians had no script, even though some scientists try to prove that Lithuanians had runes like Scandinavian Vikings. Rich folklore and mythology collected from all over Lithuania from the times of Enlightenment gives the names of gods and their relations with other gods. And archeological material provides some facts about Lithuanian's host and every day life. The pagan faith is built on these poor evidences, but the most important is faith to Mother Earth. Lithuanian is a typical agriculture worker (by the way, roman word paganus means farmer) loving nature and soil. This tight connection between nature and human can be found not only in Lithuanian literature, but also in some people's world-view and soul. The idolizing of various ancient gods at the present time is pointless and, frankly, impossible. Christianity destroyed all the ancient temples and hills, where sacrifice ceremonies took place, later by Communist regime. Soviets persecuted the members of Romuva organization, which tried to celebrate pagan festivals already in the 1970's. Every remembrance of Lithuanian history and true culture meant to be nationalistic, what was not tolerated at all. That's why no particular god cult arise. Pagans believe harmony of human and nature which is full of various gods and deities, who occupies every realm of human life: gods responsible for harvest, fire, happiness, wealth, forest gods, lake goddesses, swamp spirits etc. Lithuanians had their own saint woods, stones and animals. There were the forests of saint oaks, where various ceremonies took place and the sacred fire were burnt. Later after baptizing, these woods were cut out by Catholic Church authorities. Interesting fact is that Lithuanians kept serpents at home, fed them and considered as a saint animal. The idea is that serpent has connections both with the world of live and dead. The respect to these reptiles were enormous, the biggest crime was to kill the serpent. Christianity could not accept this kind of relations to serpents simply because they were the representatives of evil, according to the Bible. Lithuanians had also special clergymen, who performed the rituals. When Christianity came, a lot of them were killed and persecuted till the end of life. Catholic Church did not recognize them and did not accept to communities. But they remained very influential because continued to serve people as healers and witches. When the witch fires began, a lot of them were killed. Everything was done to destroy ancient culture and traditions, but Lithuanians still kept it until today.