Rūdninkai is a village on the right bank of the Merkiai River, in the Rūdnininkai Forest, located on the old Vilnius-Krokuva road. In the 15th and 17th centuries, the Rūdninki Forest was a royal hunting reserve, where Duke Casimir built a hunting lodge. In 1470, the Duke ordered the parishioners of the surrounding villages to build a chapel on the hunting estate. Unfortunately, it burnt down, so the villagers wanted a church. There was also an excuse: a bear attacked the Duke, but the Duke was saved by his assistant.
The church was built by King Casimir’s son, Sigismund the Old, and decorated with the Prince’s salvation wreath, “The Bear’s Claw”. In the 16th century, the coffin containing the remains of Queen Barbara Radvilaitė was placed there for the night during the funeral procession from Cracow to Vilnius. In the mid-17th century, the prayer house and the hunting estate were burnt down by Russian Cossacks. The present wooden church has stood since 1790. In the middle of the 19th century, it was decorated with an altar transported from the closed Trakai Bernardine Church. At present, the 17th-century paintings ‘Mary and the Child’ and ‘The Holy Family’, the 18th-century painting ‘The Lamentation of Christ’, also on wood, and the 19th-century altar with wood sculptures hang in the wooden panels.
