“Scarred by the erosion of values, especially Christian values”: that’s how Cardinal Audrys Juozas Backis, archbishop of Vilnius and president of the Lithuanian Bishops’ Conference, defined “the cultural transition of post-Soviet Lithuania”. The archbishop was addressing the international conference held in Vilnius in recent weeks on “Christian values and culture today”, focused on the revival of the Christian dimension in contemporary culture, and also aimed at commemorating the visit to the country made by the English Catholic writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) in 1927. The three-day conference was promoted by the G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith and Culture in Oxford, and attended by numerous representatives of cultural institutions in the former Soviet republic, guest speakers of various nationality and sixteen Lithuanian schoolchildren, representing the various Christian projects of education and culture launched in the country. Stigmatizing “the timidity and false modesty that mask the reluctance of many to embrace Christianity and discern good from evil”, Cardinal Baèkis urged Christians “to share the courageous faith of Chesterton and to participate in the adventures of the Christian world”. We need “active and committed Christians he concluded capable of transforming the entire world”. The president of the Chesterton Institute for Faith and Culture, Ian Boyd, launched a project to establish a branch of the Institute in Lithuania.
