The Hill of Crosses in Lithuania

The Hill of Crosses, also known as the Mecca of Lithuania is situated about 13 km from Šiauliai, the fourth largest city in Northern Lithuania.

Its origin dates back to 1236, when the city was founded to defend the area from the attacks of the Teutonic Knights, which does not get as they conquered the area and dominate throughout the fourteenth century. Some sources indicate the placement of the
first cross on the hill during this period. Over the years, the Lithuanian Catholicism started using this place as a symbol against oppression.

Already in the nineteenth century Russia takes over Lithuania. Many a bloody battle was fought on these lands against the oppressive Russian and Lithuanian thousands of soldiers die in them. Family members, as they were unable to bury many of these bodies,
used the makeshift cemetery hill as symbolic.

In 1895 there were 150 large crosses and many others of less size. The place was beginning to become a centre of pilgrimage, symbolizing peace, freedom and hope for the Lithuanian people.

In the twentieth century come the two great wars, after the first, the Germans occupy the country for three long years. In the second, the Russians again invaded the area to be conquered again by the Germans for a short period of time and return at the end
of the war into the hands of Stalin as the Socialist Republic of Lithuania.

At this time the hill had grown. Thousands of small crosses were piled around the hill, and crowned by 400 large crosses. The Russians did not like anything that this place became a symbol of freedom for Lithuanians and made it impossible for them to disappear
from the map.

They burned all on several occasions, tried to level the hill and even the hill became a dumping ground for waste and scrap. But none of that ended it, at dawn, dozens of crosses appeared again planted there and however much they strive to destroy them,
they reappeared again and again.

The Russians even cast flooding throughout the area by building a dam in a nearby river, but luckily for the Lithuanian Communist regime fell and none of this came to be held.

From then until now the number of crossings and the importance of place as a centre of pilgrimage have been increasing. It is estimated that more than 100,000 crossings of all types and sizes. In the crosses have joined prints, rosaries, pictures, statues
and all kinds of religious people have been piling up there in memory of their ancestors, relatives or friends.

Faith Hill, as often happens in these cases, it has also become a business for many, they sell in the neighbourhood crosses and trinkets of all sorts to unsuspecting tourists who go there without taking home the cross. Maybe a little overcrowding distorts
the original meaning of the hill, but this does not mean that the place is truly amazing and is a landmark point in the journey of pilgrimage in Europe.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=19483

Posted by Fouad Ashraf on Apr 18 2012. Filed under Europe, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry