If I can piggyback off this question, what do we know about the religion of Pagan Lithuania?

How about I reword the question for greater specificity.

When Lithuanians did start to meaningfully convert to christianity, what had recently happened to start the phenomenon?

My question on this is is how did they hold up as long as they did against the Teutonic order and there armies.

Greetings! This is my first attempt, so please be patient with me if I make rookie errors.

I will be answering the above question from the perspective of me being a student of the period of the Livonian crusades. That said, my answer will hinge mostly on developments on the Baltic frontier. Most 12-13th century politics in Kievrus and Novgorod is slightly beyond my horizon.

That said, I will try to structure my answers as clearly as possible:

1. Military answer – The geography that protected the Lithuanian heartland from aggression from the west was mostly marshland, which prevented logistics and long term campaigns from reaching their areas. The Swordbrethren (later Livonian order) plus the armed pilgrims had to do slow progress which allowed the Lithuanians to prepare. The Lithuanian cavalry was better adapted to the local conditions (fighting on home territory) than the ultra-heavy feudal knight cavalry (who were in a foreign environment). (See the battle of Saule in 1236 and the battle of Durbe in 1260.)

2. Internal political – That which was to become the Lithuanian state was on the brink of having a centralized power, which allowed them to have one leader. This helped them mustering forces and remain (relatively) united in the face of a threat.

3. Comparative advantages – When the germans (Sword brethren/Livonian order) and armed pilgrims conquered the livonian, estonian, latgallian, semgallian, couronian lands, this was done over 2-3 decades. But conquered did not mean pacified. There were constant troubles and the last great rebellion in Estonia came in 1346 which caused the Danish king to order to sell the north of Estonia to the Livonian order. Thus creating a situation where Lithuania could focus on holding their own against an enemy who had constant troubles in the back yard.

4. Triangle politics – With the Teutonic order on one side, and Novgorod/Kievrus on the other, Lithuania could use the hostile situation between their neighbors to create a political balance, playing out the enemies against each other.

5. Geographical distance – Christianization had spread from the area of the Roman empire and then beyond the Limes. Just by looking at how trade and commerce was moving, it is easy to see that the Baltic lands and in particular the inland part of the Baltics were the last to be touched by cultural influences.

These reasons (and other I am sure) combined made for a late christianization. I have not even touched upon the process itself, where Lithuanian kings accepted christianity and then rebuked it a few decades later, for political purposes...

Sources and references: I use primarily the Livonian Chronicle (english translation) as my source of information. http://books.google.se/books/about/The_Chronicle_of_Henry_of_Livonia.html?id=FmJnyTlis7oC&redir_esc=y

As a beautiful source for the "Fratres militiæ Christi Livoniae" I must refer to a work in German "Der Orden der Schwertbrüder" by Friedrich Benninghofen. Not easily obtained, but there are copies if you google for it and look in antique book shops.

And for the Nestor chronicle (Russian early documents) I have used the translation that I found via wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_Chronicle (look at the bottom of the page)

Please let me know how I can improve this answer to make it useful to you.

Best regards /Mårten

If I can tack on a follow-up question to this, is it true that the Baltics were the last region of Europe to convert?

I'm of Estonian descent and was always told this was the case, but I always figured Karelia or some other parts of northern Finland/Norway/Sweden would.