Address:
Center for Religious Studies and Research
Vilnius University
Universiteto 3 – 38
LT-01513

Tel./fax: (370-5) 268 71 62

E-mail: rstc@rstc.vu.lt
Web site: www.rstc.vu.lt

Director – Dr. Rita ŠERPYTYTĖ; e-mail: rita.serpytyte@rstc.vu.lt

Vilnius University Center for Religious Studies and Research was established at the end of 1992 as the intercourse and interfaculty study and scientific research structure. The center was established to preserve and develop Christian cultural tradition, and to research Lithuanian religious reality promoting the dialogue between religious and secular cultures.

The Center for Religious Studies and Research offers the academic program for Master’s degree as well as public lectures for the students of Vilnius and other Universities. The studies are oriented at consolidation of the Catholic outlook. The courses are on philosophy, the Bible, theology and Church history, social sciences (history of religion, religious psychology and sociology) and other spheres of culture and religion. The courses are taught by Lithuanian as well as foreign professors. The closest contacts are established with the lecturers from Austria, Germany and the USA.

The Bachelor studies in the Center are not available yet, but are planned for the future. Now the Center offers studies for Master’s degree only. The studies are intended for 10 new students each year.

Beside the academic activities the Center is engaged in unique scientific researches. Since the establishment of CRSR, its representatives took part different international projects, the most distinguished of which was “Aufbruch”, an international project that involved ten states from Central and Eastern Europe with the aim to research religious life during Soviet and transitional period. The project lasted for four years and was finished in 2000. The other important international scientific project was carried out under the initiative of the Osnabrück University – “The Role of the Churches in the Process of Post Communistic Transformations”. In the course of the project the participants analyzed the current situation of the Catholic Church in post communistic societies and its role in the processes of transformation. The scientific project “Religion and culture” was started in 2001.