The Hill of Crosses The Hill of Crosses, Kryziu Kalnas, located 12 kilometres north of the small industrial city Siauliai is the lithuanian national pilgrimage centre. Standing upon a small hill many hundreds of thousands of crosses that represent Christian devotion and a memorial to lithuanian national identity.   Since the Medieval period, the Hill of Crosses has represented the peaceful resistance of Lithuanian Catholicism to oppression. In 1795 Siauliai was incorporated into Russia , but was returned to Lithuania in 1918. Many crosses were erected upon the hill after the peasant uprising of 1831- 63.   By 1895 there were at least 150 large crosses, in 1914- 200 and by 1940 there were 400 large crosses surrounded by thousands of smaller ones.

 

Captured by Germany in World War II , the city suffered heavy damage when Soviet Russia retook it at the war’s end. From 1944 until Lithuania ’s independence in 1991, Siauliai was a part of  the Lithuanian  Soviet Socialist Republic of  the USSR . During the Soviet era, the pilgrimage to the Hill of Crosses served as a vital expression of lithuanian nationalism. The Soviets repeatedly removed Christian Crosses placed on the Hill by Lithuanians. Three times during 1961, 1973 and 1975 , the hill was leveled, the crosses were burned or turned into scrap metal and the area was covered with waste and sewage. Following each of these desecrations local inhabitants and pilgrims from all over Lithuania rapidly replaced crosses upon the sacred hill. In 1985 the Hill of Crosses was finally left in peace. The reputation of sacred hill has since spread all over the world and every year it is visited by many thousands of pilgrims. Pope John Paul II visited the Hill of Crosses in september of 1993.

 

An hour spent on sacred hill will reveal crosses brought by Christian pilgrims from all around the world. Rosaries, pictures of Jesus and the saints, and photographs of lithuanian patriots also decorate the larger crosses. On windy days breezes blowing throug the forest of crosses and hanging rosaries produces a uniquely beautiful music.