A small interwar chapel, surrounded by greenery, is hiding in a remote backstreet of Žaliakalnis, near the “Šilelis” staircase, at the end of Vaistinės street. Not many have heard of it, but even fewer have seen it.
In 1925, noblemen Brigita and Liudvikas Lenartavičiai owned quite a lot of land in this part of Žaliakalnis and built a chapel and statue of St. Mary on their property. It is said that this was done in memory of their dead child. When the land taxes increased, the owners divided their 1.5 hectares into separate plots. They lived on Vaistinės backstreet No. 3 in a modernist building built in 1939. During the Soviet era, L. Lenartavičius emigrated to the USA. The sacral buildings he built remain here.
After the restoration of Independence, locals started renovating the chapel and found people’s bones under the old flooring. They respectfully put the bones into a box and buried them again. The chapel has no owner, but it is a real miracle that it was not destroyed even during the Soviet era.
Edmundas Naujokaitis, a priest of the Society of St. Pius X, held masses in the chapel in 2002 for a few months.
In 2023, the chapel and a statue were included in the Registry of Cultural Property.
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