Šiauliai, Lithuania
The Hill of the Crosses, near Šiauliai in northern Lithuania, is one of the most moving places of pilgrimage anywhere. For here the indomitable Catholic faith of the Lithuanian people survived first the Russification policies of the 19th-century tsars, and then the totalitarian atheism of the Soviet empire.
The Soviet empire razed the hill three times and burned the crosses, placed there as votive thanks or seeking God’s merciful help, simple expressions of the faith of the people. In the night the crosses would return, demonstrating Lithuania’s fidelity to God and to confound the communist usurpers whose presence polluted the land.
