Siluva – the Centre of Pilgrimage

Siluva first became known in the year 1457 when the nobleman Peter S. Gedgaudas built a church dedicated to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles SS. Peter and Bartholomew. Huge crowds of the faithful, even from neighboring Protestant Prussia, would flock to this site to celebrate the indulgenced Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the middle of the XVI century the population in the vicinity of Siluva became predominantly Calvinist. The church was closed and destroyed. The Catholics subsequently attempted legal proceedings against the Calvinists, seeking to regain the confiscated church property. The case was complicated by the fact that the Catholic ownership documents had become lost. This issue was resolved by the miraculous intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who appeared on the very spot where the church had stood.

It was the first widely known apparition of the Mother of God in Europe. Children of the nearby village saw a young woman  standing on a large rock, holding a baby in her arms and weeping bitterly. One herds boy ran to Siluva and told the Calvinist catechist about the apparition. The catechist called a teacher, named Solomon, to go with him and together they both approached the aforementioned rock. They also saw the young woman weeping, just as the children saw her. The man asked, "Why are you weeping?" She replied: "There was a time when my beloved Son was worshipped by my people here, but now they plough and sow on this very spot."

After her apparition the institutional documents of the Catholic church were found, and in 1622 the case concerning the restitution of Catholic ownership was won. A small wooden church was built in the place where the original church had stood, and the famous indulgenced Feasts were reestablished.

The celebrations in Siluva became especially popular after the reestablishment of State independence in 1918, at which time a special committee for organizing pilgrimages was founded in Kaunas. Further development was hindered by the Soviet occupation of Lithuania in the 1940s. The Soviet regime failed to suppress the traditional devotion, although KGB officers persistently tried to hinder the pilgrimages. The opposition of the Soviet authorities culminated in 1979, when false information regarding an alleged pig epidemic was announced and all the roads leading to Siluva were officially blocked--at the very time of the main celebrations in early September.

After the reestablishment of Lithuanian independence in 1990, the traditional devotions and celebrations experienced a new revival. On September 7th, 1993, during his visit to Lithuania, Pope John Paul II made a special pilgrimage to pray at this National Shrine of Our Lady in Siluva.

Today Siluva is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Lithuania visiting by many pilgrims not only from Lithuania, but also from all Europe and even other continents.

This year, 2008, we celebrate 400th Anniversary of the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Siluva, Lithuania.