St Paul Lutheran Church

Serving Lutheran Lithuanians of Chicago Heights, St Paul Lutheran Church, was active from 1841-2021. This church is now known as St Paul’s Ev Lutheran Church – LCMS, 330 W Highland Dr, Chicago Heights. Their archive collection is in English. Contact: 708.754.4493 / spchurchoffice@yahoo.com

Lithuanian Zionist Lutheran Church

In 1913, Lutherans bought land at 35th and Emerald Ave in Bridgeport (in 2024, 3501 -3507? W 35th Street is a parking), a block east of the Ramova Theatre). Dedicated in four languages, Lithuanian, Latvian, German, and English, the Lithuanian Zionist Lutheran Church, W Cermak Road (aka 22nd Street), (Facebook: Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church founded in 1910 by Lithuanian Lutherans living in Chicago with no address! Facebook, All Saints Day 2024, shows a church interior with clergy) recently known as the Zionist Lutheran Church, became a reality, on April 18, 1915. The church was founded by Lithuanian Lutherans who wanted to hear the Gospel of Christ in Lithuanian. Although Lithuanian Lutheran services had been held clandestinely in Chicago since 1903, it was not until Lithuanian Zionist, served by the visiting pastor M Keturaket of Collinsville, Illinois, that membership of the congregation began to grow. In June 1911, Reverend J J D Razokas was asked to write its constitution and then served as its minister until January 15, 1921, when it “pleased the lord to take His servant from the church militant to the church triumphant.”  Address: W Cermak Road 1910-1950.

Lithuanian Baptist Church

The Lithuanian Baptist Church at 813 W 31st Street, is, in 2024, a Valvoline automotive facility with large parking area.

Lithuanian Evangelical Lutheran Church

There was a Lithuanian Evangelical Lutheran Church, aka Lithuanian Lutheran Church, at 6641 S Troy Street, Chicago, actively served the DP community in 1957. By 2024 it had become the Heart Church Ministries of Chicago (773.776.6100)

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church

With two tall pointy steeples heralding Lithuanian folkloric traditions rising from a yellow brick with Bedford Indiana limestone trim structure set across from a large park easily mark The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church, 6812 S Washtenaw Avenue, as Chicago‘s most visible Lithuanian Catholic Church.

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church was conceptualized on May 15, 1927, by Reverend Alexander Baltutis and a lay committee of 15 Lithuanians as a national parish, named in honor of the Shrine of Our Lady of Siluva in Lithuania and was established to serve Lithuanians who lived in the are bounded by 55th Street on the north; 111th Street on the south; Harlem Avenue (in Worth Township) on the west; and Bell Avenue on the east.

Had there been an earlier church building on this site that in 1921-1923 was called our Our Lady of Siluva with its address as, 6812 S Washtenaw Avenue, that was a center of the LNCC with Stasys B Mickevicius presiding?

Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary at Siluva has its origins with the beginning of Christianity in Lithuania. Baptized Catholic when Grand Duke Jogalia married Jadwiga, Queen of Poland, in 1387, they, and their successors worked to spread Christianity in their lands, which until then had been pagan. They built churches, set up an ecclesiastical hierarchy, and are reputed to have even taught catechism to their subjects. But it was not until Petras Gedgaudas, a noble person in the service of Vytautas the Great, gave land in 1457 and other resources to endow and build a church dedicated to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles SS Peter and Bartholemew that the veneration gelled. According to legend, Gedgaudas also brought a miracle working icon from Rome in 1457. Soon crowds showed up. It was rumored that even Protestant Prussians came to celebrate the indulgenced Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By 1532 the population of Siluva turned predominantly Calvinist, yet continued to celebrate the income generating  Feast until the Calvinists closed the church, then burned it around 1569, but not before Father John Holubka, the last parish priest, could hide all the surviving valuables and documents in an iron clad box on the grounds of the church. After legal proceedings by the Catholics to get their land back, the issue took a turn in 1608 when children tending sheep said they saw a beautiful woman holding a baby and weeping on the spot where the church had stood. The following day, the children guided a crowd of villagers and a Calvinist minister to the spot where they then all saw her as well. A blind man who years before had helped the priest hide the church treasure, recalled its location. With the apparition and the finding of the iron clad box with its treasure and documents, the Catholics won their ownership claim in 1622. A small wooden church was built on the site, that by 1641 was replaced by a much larger one to accommodate the many pilgrims. On August 17, 1775, Pope Pius VI, with a papal decree, authenticated Our Lady of Siluva, approving devotion and granting pilgrims indulgences. The present late-Baroque styled minor basilica of Our Lady of Siluva stands at the northern end of a large Christian-themed Plaza that dominates the village. The site-specific interior, designed in 1786 by Lithuanian Thomas Podgaiskis, focuses on the miraculous altar painting. Since then, the 13th day of each month has been as Mary’s Day, with processions making the pilgrimage to Siluva. For its devotion to Mary, Pope Pius XI called Lithuania Terra Mariana (Land of Mary). Pope John Paul II prayed at the shrine in 1993. Benedict XVI in 2006 blessed new crowns of gold for Mary and Jesus. Two years late he sent a papal legate to take part in festivities at Siluva to mark the fourth centenary of the Marian apparition.

At 6820 S. Washtenaw Avenue, ground was broken on July 4, 1928, for a combination church and school building with the cornerstone laid on September 9, 1928. While construction was underway, nearby, another Lithuanian institution – Holy Cross Hospital – was being organized at 2700 W 69th Street by Mother Maria, founder of the Sisters of St Casimir. A hospital staffed by Sisters of St Casimir, was her answer when it became clear to her that there were “too few doctors and too few giving care” (Letter to Sr M Josepha, October 16, 1918), during the 1918-1919 influenza epidemic in Chicago. On November 4, 1928, George Cardinal Mundelein dedicated the new hospital. The Sisters also took ownership of Chicago’s Loretta Hospital in 1938. The Sisters gave up on healthcare by 1991, when their ability to oversee the challenges of this ministry diminished.

On June 9, 1929, Cardinal Mundelein blessed the new combination Church and school building, a three-story Tudor Gothic inspired structure, designed by N(orM) E Zaldokas, encompassing 12 classrooms, living quarters for the Sisters of St Casimir, an auditorium, and an assembly hall. In 1931, Father Baltutis moved to a new rectory designed by architect George S Smith at 6812 S Washtenaw Avenue. WAS THIS ALSO the location of the LNCC in 1931 with S A Linkus presiding? Since 1953, 6812 S Washtenaw Avenue has housed Our Lady of Siluva Lithuanian Mission.

At the time of its 10th anniversary, on May 16, 1937, 800 families belonged to Nativity Blessed Virgin Mary Church.

Appointed pastor in January 1944, Reverend George A Paskausas (aka Paskus), made plans with the parishioners for a new church to be constructed at the northwest corner of 69th and Washtenaw.

With its distinctive Lithuanian folk-art references, The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church follows the 1953 plans drawn up by Lithuanian educated architect and engineer, Jonas Mulokas (born on February 18, 1907, died on May 31, 1983, in Santa Monica, CA). After graduating from Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, then fleeing the Soviet occupation, Mulokas was in a DPs refugee camp in Augsburg, in the American Occupation Zone of Germany. From here he emigrated to the United States where his architecture consistently characterized and expressed Lithuanian elements, and he quickly became the most prominent promoter of national identity in architecture of his emigrant generation. (See: Vaidas Petrulis on the architecture of Mulokas, 2024)

Upon completion in 1957, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church was the first post-World War II church for Chicago‘s Lithuanian community. Its design symbolically commemorated the 700th Anniversary of the Baptism and Coronation of Mindaugas. Samuel Cardinal Stritch dedicated The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church on May 12, 1957, and again returned to the parish on September 8, 1957, to lead ceremonies for the first National Day of Prayer and the pilgrimage in honor of Our Lady of Siluva.

By the time, the Right Reverend Monsignor Paskus died on December 4, 1965, 704 pupils were enrolled in Nativity Blessed Virgin Mary School under the direction 12 Sisters of St Casimir and four lay teachers. At the time, the Archdiocese of Chicago ran 268 schools in 283 parishes.

According to the 1970 census, half of the area’s 48,435 residence claimed a foreign heritage, with the Lithuanian-born population listed as 7,718. There were 10 Black Americans listed. Four years before the census, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr with a group of Chicago Black clergy and others had marched peacefully through the neighborhood to protest Chicago’s lack of open housing. They met jeering crowds of white men, women, and children. A decade later, members of the Nationalist Socialists Party of America, modeled after the 1930s Nationalist Socialist Party of Germany, (know as Nazi after the sound of the German contraction of National Socialist), distributed anti-Black fliers and pamphlets from their headquarters at 2519 W 71st Street. Within days, the Southwest Englewood-Marquette Park Clergy issued a public a statement denouncing the activities of the American National Socialists (Nazis). Thirty-nine area clergymen, including the three at Nativity, BVM signed the statement which read in part:

“We resent and absolutely reject the arrogant presumption of this insignificant group of American Nazis to represent the Southwest Community and to promote degrading activity, basically harmful to all our citizens. We strongly urge all law-abiding and God-fearing people of this Southwest area to ignore the false promises of this group and to refuse to participate in any activities under their auspices.”

The golden jubilee of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church was celebrated on May 22, 1977, with a Mass presided over by John Cardinal Cody and celebrated by Auxiliary Bishop Vincentas Brizgys (born Plynisi, Poland,1903 - died Chicago, 1992), exiled Bishop of Kaunas, Lithuania, titular Bishop of Bosana and 13 priests who had been ordained from the parish.

With its membership of 2,500 families, Nativity Blessed Virgin Mary parish was the largest Lithuanian Catholic parish in the free world, and it was the heart of the Marquette Park neighborhood known as the “Lithuanian Gold Coast.” Nativity BVM school had 320 pupils enrolled under the direction of six Sisters of St Casimir and six lay teachers, in 1978.

Nativity Blessed Virgin Mary parish has, with services in both Lithuanian and English, been successful in unifying the Lithuanians of the Marquette Park neighborhood into an ethnic community that, as was the intention of the church design by Mulokas, preserves Lithuanian culture by keeping traditions in the liturgy and its art focused on Lithuanian history and folk traditions.

The exterior of the church is a mix of historic Lithuanian-inspired curves, versions of popular 17th century European Baroque gables, window frames that pleasingly juxtapose the cheerful light walls of Cream City bricks, so named for its yellow-color made from a clay found around Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The great western façade and the transept's great rose windows have Lithuanian-inspired wedges dividing each quadrant into three spokes framing inventive stained glass. Uniquely Lithuanian are the two folk-art inspired steeples.

Eye-level mosaics recessed on both the north and south exterior transept walls are set in a carved architectural frame of Bedford Indiana Limestone. Each mosaic depicts a pivotal moment in Lithuanian history as interpreted in 1956-1957 in the Chicago studio of Adolfas Valeska (born in Kibartai, Lithuanian, March 15, 1905, died May 11, 1994, Kaunas, Lithuania). The south mosaic depicts Mindaugas, Grand Duke, and founder of the Lithuania state, accepting baptism in 1250 from the Livonian Knights. Mindaugas was the first Lithuanian ruler to become a Christian. He then asserted himself over pagan Lithuanian nobles and tribal chiefs and eventually Lithuania proper, Samogitia (Zemaitija), and much of Belorussian. He was assasinated September 12, 1263, at Aglona, Latvia.

The north exterior mosaic, also by the Valeska Studio, depicts the Miracle of St Casimir at the River Dauguva (Daugave) in 1518 during the siege of Polotsk by the forces of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, as the Lithuanians defended the city during the Fourth Muscovite-Lithuanian War (1512-1522). As legend has it, Prince Casimir Jagiellon, wearing a blue garment, symbolic of saintlyness, and a fluttering red cape, symbolic of mortality, on a rearing white horse, a rare natural occurrence, appeared before the Lithuanian troops showing them were to safely cross the Dauguve River and achieve victory and successfully ending the siege of Polotsk. It was the first miracle attributed to Casimir, which perpetuated his cult and led to his eventual canonization. At the time of the siege, Casimir Jagiellon, born October 3, 1458, was a prince of the Kingdom of Poland and of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A pious man, he died on March 4, 1484. Soon credited with many miracles, Casimir was canonized as a Catholic saint either in 1521 in Rome by Pope Leo X or eighty years later in 1602, by Pope Clement VIII, also in Rome. Whichever year, his feast day is March 4, and his attributes are a Lily, symbol associated with purity and renewal, and a grand ducal cap. He was interred in the Chapel of St Casimir, completed 1636 in Vilnius Cathedral. Centuries later, in the USA, the order of the Sisters of Saint Casimir (SSC) was founded in 1907 in Scranton, PA by Venerable Servant of God Maria Kaupas, born Casimira Kaupas in Ramygala, Lithuania in 1880.

Placed high on the west-facing facade, below the Lithuanian folkloric inspired Baroque styled gable topped by a cross, is a sculpture by an unidentified artist, depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary, namesake of the church, standing on a pedestal over a shield depicting a mounted armored knight holding a sword and a shield. This knight-shield image has been Lithuania’s coat of arms since the early 15th century and is a common throughout the Lithuanian diaspora.

 Below, directly above the three Romanesque-styled entrance arches of the facade are four limestone sculptures personifying the Lithuanian sites where the Blessed Virgin Mary is venerated: Pazaisus, Vilnius, Siluva, and Zemaiciy Kaluarua (Kalavarija). The four sites again appear in stained-glass windows inside the church, left and right above the high altar.

Carved in 1955, these four sculptures are the only identified works by Vytautas Kasubas in Chicago. At the time exiled in New York, Lithuanian Vytautas Kasuba was born August 15, 1915, Minsk, Belarus (Russian Empire), but grew up in Marijampole, Lithuania, where he became interested in sculpture. After studying at Rygiskiy Jonas Gymnasium, he moved to the newly opened Marijampole School of Crafts and gradauted in woodcarving in 1934. Kasuba received a gold and silver medals for his statue of Ripintojelis and for carved ornaments on the furniture of Prapuolenis at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne, Paris, 1937. After working in the studio of sculptor Juozas Zikaras, he enrolled and graduated from the Kaunas School of Arts in 1939. In 1942-1943 he lectured in applied and decorative arts and sculpture, later heading the department in Kaunas Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts. His relief, entitled Liberation of Prisoners, won a prize in 1942 at the Lithuanian Artists Exhibition in Kaunas. He also assisted noted Lithuanian sculptors Juozas Mikenas and Jonas Prapuolenis with their works. During World War II, as the Soviet Army approached, he fled with his future wife Aleksandra Fledzinskaite to Germany in 1944. The DP couple arrived in the United States with their two children in 1947. While working for a furniture company in New York until 1961, he contined to create reliefs in lead. For Vatican Pavillion of the 1964 World‘s Fair in New York he created wall relief panels on images of saints, reviving the medieval technique of repousse. These were a first of their kind in the United States. Kasubas was awarded the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Art, in 1993, and in the following year he received the Order of Gediminas, 3rd degree, for his services to Lithuanian culture. He received an honorary doctorate from the Vilnius Academy of Arts. He died April 14, 1997, age 81, in New York.

In the 1950s, there were six Lithuanian architects and some ten artists working in the field of ecclesiastical art in the United States. Several of these were engaged to create The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church.

Immediately upon passing through the central arcade into the narthex of The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, a uniquely choreographed, sublime Lithuanian folk art tradition greets the eye within the context of a Mid-Century aesthetic. This is the work of Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas, born March 16, 1907, in Udrija, Lithuania. He then studied in Kalvarija and graduated from the Gymnasium in Kaunas. From here, he studied at the Kaunas Art School, to then attended Adomas Varnas for painting and Adomas Galdikas, graphics stuidos. He moved to Paris in 1931, where he earned a degree in Xylography and book illustrating, and studied wood sculpture and cabinetry at the Ecole Boulle. In Paris, he had his first exhibition in 1935, before returning to Lithuania. Teaching at Kaunas Art School, he was elected a member of the International Sculpture Commission, and awarded a gold medal at the Expoision Internationale des arts et Techniques dans la Vie Morderne, Paris in 1937 for his woodcarving and posters. The following year, he was awarded a Grand-Croix of the French Legion of Honor. And, from 1939 to 1941, as Lithuania’s chief conservation officer, he made significant contributions to Lithuania’s cultural heritage. In 1944 he escaped to Germany, where was instrumental in founding, then directing the Ecole des Arts Metiers in Freiburg im Breisgau, in the French Occupied zone of Germany. (Victoria K. Matranga (ed.), Refugee artists in Germany1945-1950: Lithuanian artists at the Freiburg Ecole des Arts et Metiers. Chicago: University of Illinois, 1984)  

While in Freiburg, Jonynas illustrated several books, including one using watercolors, and designed over 50 stamps for the French Occupied Zone. As a DP, he emigrated to New York in 1951, where he continued to illustrate books, and founded the Jonynas & Shepherd Art Studio, Inc. Jonynas & Shepherd designed some 60 church interiors in the United States, Europe, and Australia, between 1955 to 1979. For the Vatican Jonynas designed the stamp that commemorates the 500th Anniversary of Lithuania’s patron Saint Casimir. He also designed the Chapel of Lithuanian Martyrs in St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, and the Vatican City Pavilion for the New York World’s Fair, 1964. Vytautas Kazimieras Jonynas died December 4, 1997, in Vilnius, Lithuania,

In harmony with the architecture of Mulokas, the interior of The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church by Jonynas is frothed into a heady ensemble of Lithuanian traditional folk art, imagery, mingled with American so-called Mid-Century aesthetics.

No ecclesiastical space in Chicago or the United States developed such an effective hybrid aesthetic.

On each lateral side of the nave, and the adjoining transept walls, Jonynas and Mulokas placed six smooth white columns and two pilasters, each capped with the same exuberant cast plaster capitol with gilt detailing, inspired by traditional Lithuanian wood carving. These capitals are unique among Chicago’s many sacred spaces.

On each side, four stained-glass windows pierce the walls above this arcade, with two more on the transept walls. The windows were all designed and fabricated by Jonynas in about 1957.

The windows present the Blessed Virgin Mary in various traditionally accepted functions, along with St Casimir and St Michael the Archangel. Though their subjects identify as Lithuania, their design and fabrication are distinctly mid-century American.

Piercing the eastern most wall of the church, above the altar, four apse windows, two on each side of the altar, expand the visual repertoire in stained-glass Kasuba’s exterior sculptures. Here, The Blessed Virgin Mary of Pazailis, aka the Camaldolese Mother of God of Mother of Fair Love, is a painting of the Virgin Mary housed in the Pazailis Monastery in Kaunas, Lithuanian. Legend has it that it was given by Pope Alexander VII as a gift to the Kristupas Zigmantas Papas, the founder of the monastery in Pazaislis in 1610; The Blessed Virgin Mary of Kalvarija (Zemaiciu Kalvarija), depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary with Infant, became a miraculus painting from the mid-17th century on that the Dominican Petras Pugacevskis brought from Rome to the Zemaicius Kalvarija. After its placement in the side altar of the church in 1643, this painting has had over 150 miracles attributed to it. The town is also the site of the Atlaidai, a religious feast, of the Holy Mother Mary Visitiation.

Our Lady of Vilnius is an oil on canvas painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary venerated by the faithful in the Chapel of the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius.

The painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Trakai, in the main altar of the Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Trakai, dates to 1600. Pope Clement XI sent Bishop Konstante Kazimierz Brzostowski for the canonical coronation of the venerated image on September 4, 1718.

Throughout the church, the high relief vaulting decoration by Jonynas replicates in plaster delicate lace-like Lithuanian folk imagery.

Kazys Varnelis designed the great western rose window, both the north and south transept rose windows, as well as the decorative small roundels divided by a heavy cross molding that pierce the side-aisle and stairwell walls. Each quadrant of these roundels has a stained-glass cross set in a circle, designs not repeated in any other windows in Chicago.

The north transept has an altar before a shallow niche framed by square floral tiles around a mural from 1957 created by Sister Mercedes Mickevicius of the Sisters of St Casimir. This mural depicts the appearance of the Madonna of Siluva, aka Our Lady of Siluva, of 1608, holding the Christ Child dressed in white in her left arm, while Mary, the mother, wears a blue cloak, expressing her divinity over a red garment, symbolizing her humanity.

Various other symbols fill her cubist inspired Mandorla, which extends left and right in yellowish, alternating with blueish vertical bands covering more symbols, including sheep, clergy, learned men, and children. This mural is Sister Mercedes’s largest, measuring 17 feet tall by 22 feet wide.

Sister Mercedes Mickevisius was born of Lithuanian parents in Chicago, in 1915. After attending St Casimir Academy for Girls (later renamed Maria High School), administered by the Sisters of St Casimir, she joined the Sisters. Then, Sister Mercedes studied at De Paul Univeristy in Chicago, graduating with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree, and went on to the Catholic University in Washington DC and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she received an MFA (master's in fine arts). She also traveled with the Europe Program of Loyola University, Chicago. Through out her life, Sister Mercedes designed greeting cards and illustrated books, took part in many exhibitions including the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture and the University Club of Chicago. She died October 1, 2007, aged 92, having been a Sister of St Casimir for all but 20 of those years.

Across the transept to the south is an identical niche, framing a high-color mural signed by K Zaromski 1957. Kasimieras Leonardas Zoromskis, born 1913 in Smilgiai, Lithuania, lived in New York, and several other locations, before he died 2004 in Vilnius, Lithuania. His mural, Exalting the Feast of the Exultation of the Holy Spirit, a feast celebrated on September 14, conflates the image with our Lady of Sorrows, celebrated September 15, who has seven swords piercing her immaculate heart as she cradles the body of Jesus supines in her lap. Behind and above her, is the Cross of the Crucifixion along with various other figures filling the spaces left and right.

The Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows (Latin: Beata Maria Virgo Perdolens), is also known as Our Lady of Dolours, the Sorrowful Mother or Mother of Sorrows (Medieval Latin: Mater Dolorosa) and our Lady of Piety, Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows or Our Lady of the Seven Dolours, may date to the 11th century, but mote probable is an origin associated with the 13th century Christian Hymn Stabat Mater, from Franciscan and Dominican sources whose first line reads “Stabat Mater dolorosa.“ Already in 1233 seven wealthy men of Florence renounced their wealth for the service of God and started the Order of the Servants of Mary, also known as the Servites. In 1240, these seven founders of the Servite Order took up the Sorrows of Mary as their prinipal devotion. In 1432, a synod in Köln (Germany) introduced a Mass text and prescribed an annual feast in honor of the Seven Sorrows to be held in the Köln dioceses on the Friday after the third Sunday after Easter as the Feast Day, with the title: Commemoration angustiae et Dolores B Maria V. Its object was the Sorrow of Mary during the Crucifixion and Death of Christ, and the suffering that followed. The Roman Missal officially placed the Feast under the title of Our Lady of Compassion, in 1482. Before the 16th century the Feast was limited to dioceses of North Germany, Scandinavia, and Scotland. On April 22, 1727, Pope Benedict XIII extended the Feast to the entire Latin church under the title Septem Dolours BMV. The feast was named for the seven Dolours, each represented by a sword, as prophesied by Simeon in Luke 2:25-35: Flight to Egypt  The Prophecy of Simeon (Mathew 2:13-15); Loss of the Child Jesus for Three Days (Luke 2: 41-50; Mary Meets Jesus on His Way to Calvary (Luke 23:27-31; John 19:17) Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (John 19:25-30); The Body of Jesus Taken from the Cross (Psalm 130; Luke 23:50-54; John 19: 38-42; Mark 15: 40-47). Pope John XXIII, in his 1960 Code of Rubrics reduced the September Delourd BMV to the level of a commemoration.

The high altar, designed by Jonynas, following Catholic tradition, is the focus and culmination of the axis-of-devotion that starts on the sidewalk outside the central portal. Its columned tabernacle surrounds a gold-plated reproduction of the patriotic icon of Our Lady of Siluva venerated at the Basilica of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Siluva. Pope Pius VI granted a Canonical coronation to the venerated image on September 8, 1786. Pope John Paul II raised the shrine to the status of Minor Basilica through his Pontifical decree Constat Intra Fines, on May 6, 1988. In Lithuania, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, popularly called Silines, is also celebrated on September 8.

Cardinal Stritch of Chicago led ceremonies at this altar on the first National Day of Prayer and the pilgrimage in honor of Our Lady of Siluva, on September 8, 1957. To this day the church retains its importance within the national Lithuanian community.