Infant Jesus Hospital
Neither in the 18th century nor before did the state take care of abandoned kids dying in the streets and of people living in utter poverty. Charitable institutions developed only due to the efforts of the elite and local communities. The rich and the mighty acted driven by their personal interest, such as feeling good Christians, fulfilling their Biblical obligation of love thy neighbor, ensuring a faster redemption, building their prestige in the eyes of the others and showing their financial strength.
On the 16 December, 1786, the Supreme Tribunal of Lithuania welcomed Jadwiga Teresa Ogińska, in an attempt to fix the injustice, expressed her will to donate a plot of land and an empty brick building just outside off the Subačius Gate to what was to become the Infant Jesus Hospital.
In five years a two-storey building with a spacious courtyard surrounded and a tall brick wall arose just beside the Church of Ascension and the house of the Lazarites. Over the next five years, a number of other benevolent people, including king Stanisław August Poniatowski, joined the ranks of the hospital’s generous supporters. The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul eventually assumed responsibility for the hospital. They had been nursing the sick at another hospital in Vilnius for almost fifty years and had taken care of hundreds of children.
Learn more about childcare in old Vilnius by clicking this link.
