Vilnius Dungeons - Purpose

Purpose

The purpose of the dungeons is also disputed. There are various claims, from romantic stories that they were used by certain legendary lovers of the Great Duchy of Lithuania (Barbora Radvilaitė and Žygimantas Augustas) to meet each other secretly, to some horror stories, to the more realistic explanations. The origin of the dead bodies is also not known. During Soviet times there was a version that those were bodies of the victims of the Inquisition; there were even plans to create an Inquisition museum in the dungeons. However such theories were most probably related to the general Soviet stance seeking to discredit religion and they were never substantiated; there is no evidence of major Inquisition activities in Lithuania either. Also, previously it was sometimes thought that these were bodies of people who died of plague in Vilnius; that is one of reasons for the reluctance of many to investigate the dungeons. One test however did not find plague in the bodies. There is also a theory that this might have been a dungeon built by a nearby hospital, which probably was in the monastery, to bury those who died there. One of the things that add to the mystery is finding the bodies in various unusual poses, such as a mummified woman holding a mummified child. The exact number of bodies is also unknown, as many crypts are sealed and bricked off.