On the second day of the Belgian royals’ state visit to Lithuania King Filip and Queen Mathilde paid a visit to the tomb containing the graves of several of Queen Mathilde’s ancestors. Queen Mathilde is a descendant of the Sapieha Family, a powerful aristocratic family in the former Poland-Lithuania.
Earlier the royals visited the Church Heritage Museum in the St Michael the Archangel’s Church in the Old Town of the Lithuanian capital. It contains the most valuable collection of treasures from churches in Vilnius.
The church also accommodates the tombs of several members of the Sapieha Family, of which Queen Mathilde is a descendant. The Sapiehas were one of the most powerful families exerting great political influence in the Grand duchy of Lithuania in the 16th century.
Queen Mathilde’s grandmother was Sofia Sapieha. Born in Poland in 1919 she married Leon Komorowski. The couple had six children including Queen Mathilde’s mother. The family left Poland in 1957 and via Congo ended up in Belgium.