St. Casimir's Church (Šv. Kazimiero Bažnyčia)

Named after the patron saint of Lithuania, Prince Casimir Jagiellon, and founded in 1604 by the Jesuits, St. Casimir's is the oldest Baroque church in Vilnius. It's long been a favourite subject of persecution and abuse, featuring among its many outrages Napoleon's troops use of the building as a grain store in 1812, its conversion into the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas by the Russians some 20 years later to its temporary use as a Protestant temple by the occupying German army (1915-1917). The church is topped by a golden crown. In Czarist days, it was removed and replaced by an onion dome. The crown was restored in the 1920s.