The history of the little church of Holy Cross, Vilnius, dates back to 1543, when a chapel was built on the site to commemorate the martyrdom of a group of Franscians in the 14th Century. In the 16th century, a Gothic chapel of the Holy Cross was built here by the Bishop of Vilnius Povilas Alšėniškis and soon the adjoining house was converted into a Baroque church. All this had to be rebuilt in 1737 after a disastrous fire, when the current late baroque interior was installed.
In 1976 the Church was converted into a concert hall by the Soviet authorities, and was in secular use until being returned to the Roman Catholic Church after Lithuanian independence in 1991.
The Mary Immaculate Sisters of the Poor have a house on the site, which is Simonas Daukantas Square (map) within a few hundred metres of the office of the President of Lithuania.
