List of rulers of Lithuania
The state of Lithuania formed in the 1230s, when threatened by the Livonian Order in the north and the Teutonic Knights in the west, the Baltic tribes united under the leadership of Mindaugas. He became the only crowned king of Lithuania. His state became known as Grand Duchy of Lithuania. After Grand Duke Jogaila became also king of Poland in 1386, the two states became closer connected and since 1440 both were ruled by a common ruler. In 1569 Union of Lublin was signed and a new entity—the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth—emerged. The commonwealth was partitioned in 1795 and Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire till 16 February 1918. The Council of Lithuania was able to establish the sovereignty only in 1919, after Germany lost World War I. The first republic of Lithuania existed until 1940 when it was occupied by the Soviet Union. During the Soviet-German War, Lithuania was occupied by Nazi Germany. In 1944, as Germany was losing the war, Russia re-occupied Lithuania and established the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic. On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence. The restored Republic of Lithuania is a democratic republic, a member of both the European Union and NATO.
Metropolitanate of Lithuania
The Metropolitanate of Lithuania was a short-lived metropolitanate of the Orthodox Church in the 14th century. Created between 1315 and 1317, it had only two metropolitans and was discontinued in 1371. Its establishment was part of the entry of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into the rivalry for the religious control of the Rus' principalities between Galicia–Volhynia, the Principality of Tver, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. The Byzantine Empire, seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople, generally preferred a united Metropolitanate of Kiev and all Rus' and was reluctant to divide its authority. Therefore, whenever possible, the Byzantium would unite the metropolitanates. Facing opposition to actual physical division of the metropolitanates, the Lithuanians employed additional tactics: promotion of their own candidates to the seat of the Metropolitan of Kiev and all Rus'. By the 1440s however, the final years of the Byzantine Empire, the Grand Duchy of Moscow had effectively won the dispute and became the new spiritual center of the Orthodox tradition in Eastern Europe.