„National Relations in the Diocese of Vilnius in 1798-1918“ 

The monograph National Relations in Diocese of Vilnius draws the veil that covered one of the most important and longest periods in the diocese’s lifetime.

The Diocese of Vilnius was an important institution of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the third partition of the Republic, the period painted in the color of the Russian empire and lasting for 120 years, began. According to the old historiography, the history of the Diocese encompassed not only the Church, but also the relations with the Empire, i.e. politics.

In the book A. Merkys unfolds multiple links between ethnicity, nationality and Catholicism. The work discusses at length (and reasonably) the development of the Diocese’s national composition, the ethnic phenomenon of Catholic Byelorussians and Tuteishians (the locals), the situation of Lithuanian Catholics, the activity of the Diocese’s clergymen, the language of religious teaching at schools, the models of national assimilation of Catholics and attempts to Russify the Church.