Hill of Crosses: the witness of a brave and Catholic people
Attempts to reave the Christian faith by communist regimes have been countless, in many countries and decades, especially on the European continent. The following account demonstrates one of these persuasives and the combat of the unwavering faith of Lithuanian Catholics.
The Hill of Crosses is located about 12 kilometers from the city siauliai in Lithuania. This municipality was annexed to the former USSR (as was the country of Ukraine one day) in the 19th century after being taken from the hands of the Germans at the end of World War II. In this period, its population suffered all the processes of attempts to liquidate Christianity, as they did in all countries of this region - because it conflicted with the socialist ideology that the atheist government touted. The Catholic faith, on the other hand, has never been shaken, although it has been fought.
The first crosses on the hill arose in revolts that occurred approximately in the years 1831, in a revolution against Russian imperialism. The Russian army, however, was far superior and decimated the revolutionaries. His relatives were unable to locate the bodies of his loved ones, leaving crosses at the scene as remembrance and respect. Little by little the crosses increased in volume in that region, becoming a place of Christian pilgrimage.
However, because the region was dominated by the communist regime until Lithuania's independence in 1991, numerous attempts to remove the crosses were carried out by Russian KGB agents.
On the first attempt in 1961, they burned the wooden crosses, broke the stones and scrapped the metal ones. Ending in failure! Its Catholic population in the middle of the night the other day invaded the place and grounded new crosses. Russian intelligence always observing the new movements, returned two more times to the hill and devastated everything again, even dumping sewage waste on the site. But the greater the desecration, the greater the effort of Lithuanian Christians to rebuild their work of faith, sometimes invating the hill in a strategic and courageous way, risking their lives, to place new and more crosses.
In this way, the hill became a Lithuanian symbol of the struggle of its Christians for their religiosity and faith. It was only in 1985, not so far from the present day, that the sacred hill was left alone, becoming the site of intense Christian pilgrimage. Pope John Paul II himself visited the site and left a cross in 1993. It is reported that on windy days, crosses and rosaries generate a beautiful sound, equivalent to that of a song. In addition, UNESCO has decreed the hill as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
SEE or READ MORE about this sacred place of world pilgrimage in the links of the references of this text below.
References:
CATOLICISMO ROMANO. A Colina das Cruzes e o testemunho de fé dos católicos lituânios
GUIA MUNDIAL DE PEREGRINAÇÃO. Colina das Cruzes
SAPO VIAGENS. A impressionante colina das cruzes na Lituânia