The historical beginning of Kaunas St. Nicholas church is rather obscure. No funding privilege survived, and neither the founder nor the date of the foundation, are known. There is a surviving copy of the cardinals’ letter from Rome (but not the Papal Bull of Pope Alexander VI) in Polish awarding St. Nicholas Church the right of religious festival. The copy states that the letter was written on 4 December 1495, in the second year of Alexander VI’s papal rule. Alexander VI had been crowned Pope in 1492, thus the cardinals’ letter must have been written in 1493, not in 1495. The mistake of the copying clerk put back the first mentioning of St. Nicholas Church in the historical sources by a couple of years. The cardinals’ letter from Rome awarded St. Nicholas church the rights of religious festivals for St. Nicholas, St. Bartholomew, St. Margaret and St. Magdalene days.

Vaida Kamuntavičienė