Christian Description of Baltic Paganism From 1400's

(April 17, 2025) A famous Christian hermit by the name of Jerome of Prague was one of the first Catholic Christians working in Samogitia under royal protection from the newly converted Catholic King  Jagaila. He seems to have started his Christian work during the 1420s. In 1458 he told his story to a visiting church official named Enea Silvio Piccolomini who later became Pope Pius II.

Jerome of Prague belonged to a Christian Catholic order called the Premonstratensians. They led the Pagan persecution in lands controlled by Christian authorities. They were like monks except they did not isolate themselves from the outside world. Instead they engaged with it by doing missionary and pastoral work. They were also known as Norbertines and White Canons. They were founded in 1120 and played a predominant part in the conversion of the Wends (of Codex Runicus fame) and the bringing Christianity to the territories around the Elbe and the Oder. They continued that work in the Baltic lands.

One day Jerome of Prague came across a sacred grove in Samogitia. He:

• Afterwards he went to another people who worshipped forests consecrated to demons. And among other he thought one cult more worthy. He preached for many days to this people, opening the sacraments of our faith. Finally ordered the forest to be set on fire, since the people were plentiful in axes but no one dared touch the sacred wood with iron. Therefore, Jerome took up a double-edged axe first and cut the branches from a certain excellent tree. Then the crowd following, in a quick contest, cut down the forest - some with iron axes, some with pick-axes, some with axes. They came to the middle of the grove, where for some time no-one presumed to cut a very ancient oak, sacred above all were the trees in their religion, which they thought to be a most powerful habitation. At last, one was more daring than the others, rebuking his fellows who feared to cut wood, an inanimate thing. Lifting up his double edged-axe, he decided to cut down the tree with a great blow; he hit his shin and fell down on the ground half dead. The surrounding crowd, astonish, wept, and were overcome, accusing Jerome who had persuaded hem to violate the sacred house of a god, and there was now no-one who dared make use of iron. Then Jerome affirmed these things to be the illusion of demons, who enchanted and deceived the eyes of the people. He commanded the man whom we have said fell wounded to rise up. And showing no injury in any part soon put iron to the tree, with the crowd helping, its great burden brought down with a great crack, and he cut down the whole grove. (PEMB pages 41-43)

As late as the early 1700's sacred trees were still a problem for Christian authorities. In 1725 a group of Jeuits cut down cut down no fewer than 37 sacred oak and lime trees and buried the stumps. But locals brought branches from other trees, poured libations on the sites where the stumps were buried and asked permission from the spirit of the tree to infuse the branches with its powers so they could consecrate other trees by touching them with the branches (BRMR 323-324)

References

BRMR: Alisauskas Vytautas (2016) Remains of Baltic Religion and Mythology in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 14th-18th centuries: A collection of sources. Vilnius

Vykintas Vaitkevičius (2016) Sacred Sites. In, A Hundred Years of Archaeological Discoveries in Lithuania.  edited by Gintautas Zabiela, Zenonas Baubonis, Eglė Marcinkevičiūtė. Translated by Jeffrey Arthur Bakanauskas. Published by Society of Lithuanian Archaeology. Online at: https://tautosmenta.lt/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Vaitkevicius_Vykintas/Vaitkevicius_Sacred_Sites_2016.pdf