Krikštonių Kristaus Karaliaus bažnyčia: kunigo Jono Reitelaičio architektūros palikimas
THE CHURCH OF CHRIST THE KING IN KRIKŠTONYS: ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF THE PRIEST JONAS REITELAITIS

Summary/Abstract: Jonas Reitelaitis is better known as a preacher, historian, ethnographer of Dzūkija and Sūduva and slightly less as an architect in Lithuanian society of culture, science and education. In interwar Lithuania, where only professional architects had been working, J. Reitelaitis decided to design and build a church. Incidentally, this is not the only building designed and constructed by J. Reitelaitis. He played an important role in the Krikštonys Parish – not only taking care of people‘s spirituality and beliefs but also the creation of the whole sacral complex. J. Reitelaitis’ architectural creativity has not had sufficient evaluation yet. The idea of the article is to reveal his creative development over the period of 1925−1940 and his archived heritage. The purpose is to study and evaluate the architecture of J. Reitelaitis following the ideas and personal interests of that period in Lithuania. The article recalls the biographical facts, the circumstances of creating Krikštonys Parish and the organisation of the construction of the sacral complex. His personal library is discussed in order to clarify his main architectural ideas. The church of Christ the King, one of the most important objects that has not been previously analysed, is widely discussed. The evolution of the carried out building works is disclosed; as well as the stylistic features and originality of the design. The methods used in the article were historical-biographical, reconstructive, formal, iconographic, stylistic analysis as well as observation of buildings in nature. There is not a huge amount of biographical facts of J. Reitelaitis, however, his activity was intense and varied, covering spiritual vocation, his work as a historian, organisational skills and ethnographic mastery. Summarizing his life and creations, certain phases were distinguished: the first stage searching for inspiration coincides with his studies in the seminary of Seinai (1907−1913), others coincide with his pastoral activities in Novgorod (1913), Šventežeris (1913−1916), Seirijai (1916−1926) and Krikštonys (1927−1961). While studying he actively participated in the national revival movement. Inspired by it, J. Reitelaitis devoted the rest of his life studying history and ethnography as well as strengthening his spiritual life in a remote corner of Dzūkija. The Krikštonys period was his most mature where J. Reitelaitis emerged as an architect. Following the research of his personal library it was found that the priest was interested in a variety of construction and technical issues. His library mostly consisted of craftsmen manuals and interwar guides to rural building published at the end of the 19th, the beginning of the 20th centuries. There were not many publications found relating to sacral architecture. Among them there was a book by Luszczkiewicz on church design, restoration and decoration and Corblet’s ‘Christian Altar’. In order to define what architectural studies the priest used w

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