A choice to turn a church into a warehouse is rather interesting, since a warehouse had a symbolic meaning in the Soviet Union. Some researchers believe that converting churches into warehouses “was not the abolition of the holy but, so to speak, its replacement. The warehouse is just as ideal an order in the material world as the church is in the spiritual world. The warehouse is a materialist church, but instead of collecting people who are seeking in prayer an exalted form of the soul, it houses a multitude of objects that have found a precise inventoried form.”[2]
Nevertheless, according to various data from 1953 to 1959 nearly 15-20% of churches were closed while some of sacral buildings went through radical transformations. Vilnius Cathedral Basilica (1783) by Gucevičius was closed in 1949. During 1950 sculptures of saints, which were on the rooftop were removed and destroyed. Since the Cathedral was closed a lot of artifacts were stolen while the interior was ravaged. The Cathedral become part of the Museum of Art and was in1956 transformed into a gallery. The building was returned to the Catholic community in 1988. [...]
Kaunas Mosque also known as Vytautas the Great Mosque is one of four remaining mosques in Lithuania. Its design reminds the mosques in Northern Africa, a compact, small-volume mosque combines historical forms with oriental motifs like an elliptical dome and a small minaret, which was never used for its traditional purpose.
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