Europe's last pagan state was already diverse: Medieval Vilnius drew migrants from Christian lands

[erronis]

https://phys.org/news/2026-07-europe-pagan-state-diverse-medieval.html

Lithuania was famously the final pagan state in Europe. While the rest of the continent converted to Christianity, Lithuania remained officially pagan until Catholicism was adopted in AD 1387. Despite this, the extent to which Lithuania's population remained pagan or converted to Christianity was unclear, as was the extent of migration from the wider Christian world.

Using isotope analysis of human remains from a 13th-14th-century cemetery on Bokšto Street, in Vilnius Old Town, an international research team revealed that some of the earliest Christians buried there likely arrived from regions of the former Kievan Rus', corresponding to present-day western Ukraine and southern Poland. Their results are published in the journal Antiquity.

Archaeological evidence, including Byzantine-style ornaments, crosses, chaplets and imported grave goods, had long suggested connections with the Ruthenian and Byzantine worlds. The new isotope evidence now provides direct biological confirmation that migration played a role in the formation of Vilnius' earliest Christian communities.

"Archaeologists have long suspected that the Civitas Ruthenica community included migrants from the Ruthenian lands. The isotope data now provide direct evidence that at least some individuals buried at Bokšto came from far beyond Lithuania," explains Dr. Rytis Jonaitis of the Lithuanian Institute of History, co-leader of the long-term archaeological investigations at the Bokšto Street cemetery.

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