Hill of Crosses is situated 12 km (7.5 mi) North of Šiaulia. This unique site has numerous legends surrounding. The origin of placing the crosses according to some accounts date back to 1831 then Russian Empire defeated Polish and Lithuanian rebellions who defended Jurgaičiai or Domantai hill fort established here. The families of the dead soldiers could not find the bodies of their relatives so they gathered all crosses on a single hill that represented a massive burial.
Location: 12 km (7.5 mi) North of Šiauliai Map
Another legend date the origin of Hill of Crosses to 14th century then Roman Catholic Church finally took over the region and baptized everyone to Christianity. The hill that once served as pagan temple received its first cross. This was a common practice for Catholic priests to erect crosses over places that once were sacred to polytheistic religions. Another legend claim that in 1870's a Virgin Mary appeared here and naturally pilgrims brought their crosses to the hill. Some claim that the first cross was brought here by a father those daughter disappeared. He set a cross, prayed over it and upon returning home discovered his lost child back in wife's arms.
Whatever the true origin of the Hill of Crosses might be it is certain that it gained great notoriety in the 20th century as a symbol of struggle of Christians against atheistic Soviet government that tried everything in their power to wipe out faith of millions of people in Lithuania as well as other republics of the former Soviet Union. By 1961 the hill counted over 5,000 crosses. Nikita Khrushchev who was a leader of Soviet Union at the time unleashed immense atheistic campaign against anyone who believed in God. Hill of Crosses became a logical target for atheistic fanatics. It was too famous for its own good in Lithuania as well as other countries of the Eastern Europe. Bulldozers wiped out all of the crosses, metal crosses were sold as scrape metal, wooden one were burned, and stone crosses were thrown into a river. Communists closed all roads to the hill and yet as soon as they removed all the crosses they started to reappear again. Local citizens were bringing them back at night. The attempts to remove the crosses from the hill were repeated in 1963 and in 1973. All had the same result. The crosses just started to appear every night. With arrival of Gorbachev the place began to recover. On September 7th, 1993 Pope John Paul II visited the Hill of Crosses. In 2000 a Franciscan hermitage was open near the site. Today over 100,000 crosses stand on the hill. Anyone who is willing to bring a cross is welcome to do so.
Location, shape and customs
The mountain is about 12 km north of
Šiauliai (German: Schaulen, Polish: Szawle), 1.5 km east of the A12
trunk road, which runs from Šiauliai via Joniškis to Riga. The term
“mountain of crosses” is common in German, but due to its low height of
ten meters, the term hill is closer. A narrow staircase made of wooden
planks leads over the saddle-shaped double hill. Pilgrims place crosses
on this hill, often with a wish or thanks. The pilgrimage takes place
individually and is not tied to any dates, but the Hill of Crosses is
visited especially at weddings, births and at Easter.
Legends and
facts about the origin and development
There are two legends about
the formation of the hill, the erection of the crosses and the effects
they triggered:
A father fell asleep at the bedside of his sick
daughter; A white female figure appeared to him in a dream who asked him
to set up a cross on the hill. The man did as he was told by the woman's
figure and set up a cross on that very hill. When he returned home, his
daughter was healthy again.
Another legend tells about a prince
from Vilnius. 300 years ago, he went to court against another prince and
traveled past the mountain to the court in Riga. He said to his
servants: "If I win the case, I will set up a cross on the mountain."
After the prince had won the case, on the way back he ordered the cross
to be set up on the mountain. The reputation of the prince's vow soon
spread throughout the country.
The hill is considered a medieval
castle hill, with the castle being called Jurgaičiai and said to have
been destroyed by crusaders in 1348. Already at that time, the at least
partially artificial hill was probably a place of prayer and sacrifice.
History in the 19th and 20th centuries
After the Third Partition
of Poland, Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire. In the period
that followed, Poles and Lithuanians rebelled twice against the Russian
authorities, namely in the November Uprising of 1830/31 and in the
January Uprising of 1863/64. Both uprisings against the tsarist regime
were bloodily suppressed. Around this time, local residents are said to
have started putting up crosses on the mound for their relatives killed
in the uprisings, without knowing where they are buried. Other sources
assume that the insurgents were executed on the hill.
In 1900
there were 150 and in 1940 about 400 crosses on the hill. After the
Soviet Union occupied Lithuania in June 1940 and more than 100,000
Lithuanians were deported to Siberia in 1940/1941 and again from 1945 to
1953, the erection of the crosses decreased. After Stalin's death in
1953, when the survivors among the deportees gradually returned from
Siberia, they immediately set up crosses in memory of those who had died
in the Gulag. Likewise, many political prisoners and believers erected
more crosses. As a result, the Lithuanian pilgrimage site increasingly
became a political symbol against Soviet communist rule in Lithuania.
The hill was therefore increasingly a thorn in the side of the communist
regime in Lithuania, and on June 16, 1959 the Central Committee of the
Lithuanian Communist Party dealt with the hill for the first time. It
was decided to destroy the supposedly holy place. A first extermination
action took place on April 5, 1961. The crosses were bulldozed, 2179
crosses were taken down from the hill and the wooden crosses were
burned. Iron crosses were scrapped, stone and concrete crucifixes
smashed, buried or sunk in the nearby stream. But already in the next
night new crosses were erected. In 1973, 1974 and 1975 the regime
repeated these acts of destruction, but the communist crusade against
the Hill of Crosses was unsuccessful, making the mountain increasingly a
symbol of national resistance. In 1990 there are said to have been
40,000 crosses on the hill. The number of crosses also increased when,
in January 1991, fourteen people lost their lives when Soviet special
troops stormed the TV tower in Vilnius in the fight for Lithuania's
national independence. In the early 1990s, an attempt was made by
students from Vilnius University to count the number of crosses now
spread over an area of one hectare next to the hill. They stopped
counting at 50,000 crosses. At that time, the small cross pendants and
rosaries that are hung on larger crosses were not included. These
reinforce the mystical atmosphere of the place when they hit each other
even in a light wind and emit a soft ringing or rattling.
Papal visit and establishment of the Franciscan monastery
On
September 7, 1993, Pope John Paul II visited this place and celebrated a
mass in the open air in front of about 100,000 believers in the altar
pavilion built especially for this purpose. During this ceremony, John
Paul II entrusted the Franciscan order with the care of the place of
pilgrimage and the building of a monastery. The laying of the foundation
stone for this monastery building took place at the end of the 1990s.
Designed by Italian architect Nunzio Rimmaudo, the building has two
floors and is built in the shape of a Lithuanian cross around a
cloister. It serves as a novitiate house for prospective monks as well
as a place of prayer and contemplation. The monastery was inaugurated in
July 2000 after two years of construction. The construction costs
amounted to around 1.1 million euros. There is a small chapel on the
ground floor. Behind the sanctuary, large glass windows offer a view of
the Hill of Crosses. Furthermore, the ground floor offers space for a
library, offices, the kitchen, the refectory and four guest rooms.
Upstairs there are a total of 16 cells for friars, including 14 for
novices. In 1994, the Vatican also donated a large cross with the figure
of Christ, which was placed at the beginning of the small staircase that
leads over the Hill of Crosses.
Since Lithuania regained
independence in 1991 and especially after the Pope's visit, Kreuzberg
has been internationally regarded as a holy place for Catholics, which
can be seen from the crosses with inscriptions from all over the world.