I think about my rich Lithuanian heritage today in remembrance of my mother who recently passed away.  The most impressive religious site we visited was the Hill of Crosses, north of Šiauliai in northern Lithuania.

Background

There are many stories regarding the background of the hill.  And no one knows for sure which ones are true.  The first crosses were placed on the hill after an uprising against the Russians in 1831.  One famous story has to do with a father’s love for his daughter who had fallen ill.  As the story goes, the father waited beside his daughter on her deathbed and had a vision of a woman.  In the vision, the woman asked him to place a wooden cross on the nearby hill.  If he did, his daughter would be well again.  The father carved a cross out of wood and placed it on the hill, and upon returning home he found his daughter fully recovered.

The Soviet government made the most ardent effort to eliminate the crosses throughout the 1960s-70s.  Their effort was met with even more devotion to replacing the crosses after they bulldozed and burned the area several times.  The Lithuanians’ unshakable faith is evident by the risk they took in continuously rebuilding their symbol of national identity.

The Religious Collection

The Hill of Crosses has grown to an estimated collection of over 200,000 religious icons and crucifixes from various religious denominations.  The local government and Franciscan monks provide minimal maintenance of the area.  Even Pope John Paul II visited the site in 1993, calling it a place of “hope, peace, love, and sacrifice.”  You can bring your own cross to augment the collection or buy one from a local merchant.  We wandered through the maze, meandering down various paths to find the perfect location for our addition to this site.  You can easily get to the Hill of Crosses by train, bus, or rental car from Vilnius or Kaunas.