Architecture of Lithuanian-American Catholic Parochial Schools.

Lithuanian-American Roman Catholic parochial elementary schools are integral to the cultural heritage of the United States, representing crucial pieces in the puzzle of Lithuanian architecture and education history. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when non-Russian religious and secular education in Lithuania was prohibited, a network of Lithuanian Catholic schools already existed in the United States. Lithuanian Catholic parishes began to emerge at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when some Catholic urban minorities received the right to establish national parishes. A distinctive architectural feature of this period was the combined church-school building, funded and often constructed by communities themselves. Today, some of these buildings are used by other confessional or ethnic communities according to their primary purpose, sometimes they are repurposed, while others remain neglected or have been demolished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]