A Hill of Crosses...

Elder & Sister Davis were on their way to visit the newest Baltic missionary couple, the Watts, in Kaunas, Lithuania, when Sister Davis fell asleep in the car. In her defense, she didn't sleep well the night before and was tired.  Since she is the trip navigator, you might think that Elder Davis got lost...but he didn't. 

He did know there was one place he wanted to visit,  close to Šiauliai, Lithuania,  and he couldn't find it.  When he realized he must have passed the road he needed to take,  he woke Sister Davis up and said, "I missed it somehow."
Sister Davis (groggily): Huh? What did we miss?"
Elder Davis (looking for a place to pull over):  "The Hill of Crosses".
Sister Davis (sitting up):   "The Hill of Crosses!   Holy Moly...We've got to see that!"

A look at the map showed, we had indeed, passed the road we needed....but how far back it was, we weren't sure.
Sister Davis looks closely at the map and we head back the way we came.   We found the turn off but Elder Davis would have missed it again if Sister Davis hadn't said,  "This is it!"

It isn't any wonder Elder Davis missed the road the first time.  On a rather small brown sign with the symbol at left, was written  Kryžių kalnas.  We had no idea what that meant.

And we found what we were looking for, Hill of Crosses.

You are probably wondering why two Mormon missionaries would want to visit a place full of crosses.  Crosses are icons you just don't see in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You won't see a cross anywhere on or in a Mormon chapel. You definitely won't see one on a Mormon Temple and you don't usually see our members wearing jewelry with crosses.  It's not that we aren't Christian, it's that we Mormons don't like to use an emblem of death to remind us of our beloved Savior.

The official church statement is,  "The cross is used in many Christian churches as a symbol of the Savior's death and Resurrection and as a sincere expression of faith. As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we also remember with reverence the suffering of the Savior. But because the Savior lives, we do not use the symbol of His death as the symbol of our faith."

We are told to express our love for the Savior by our day-to-day actions. Do we act in a Christ-like way? That is how we honor Him.

But we Latter-day Saints understand the deep symbolic meaning the Cross has for Christians all over the world and we respect their right to display and honor it.

The Hill of Crosses has become a big tourist attraction, especially for those of the Catholic faith.  This small hill is covered with crosses, crucifixes and rosaries and shows the prominence of Catholicism in Lithuania.
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Crosses first started appearing on this small hill after an uprising against ruling Russia in 1831.
By 1914, over 200 crosses stood on the hill and when the Soviets came in to occupy Lithuania, the athiest regime decided  to get rid of them. 

They hacked down the crosses in 1961, but crosses kept reappearing on the site. In 1973, he Soviets bulldozed the crosses into the ground and again people secretly put more crosses up. 

In 1975, not only were the crosses bulldozed off the hill, sewage was scattered on top of the hill to discourage people from coming back.  Ewwwww!

It is funny how hard anti-religious groups will try to stop religious people from exercising their faith.  And, of course, all those things just made people more determined to show their faith and crosses once again showed up on the hill. The Soviets finally decided to leave it alone, it was getting more well known everytime they tried to stop it!

In 1993, afer Lithuania declared it's independence, Pope John Paul II came to visit the Hill of Crosses. And of course a large cross was put up in his honor along with a granite memorial.

Many tourists that come to visit the site buy a wooden cross at a nearby gift shop and leave them hanging where ever they find room....off of big crosses hang medium crosses and on medium crosses hang little crosses. 

As you start walking from the road to the hill, the crosses are in some semblance of order along the pathway....

But as you get closer to the main entrance, the crosses are place haphazardly anywhere space is available. It is overwhelming to the eye. You can't possibly see all the crosses.

Someone needs to reorganize this place and make it more appealing to visit.  We were just overwhlemed by the mass of wooden and metal crosses and felt a need to move on. It doesn't feel like a place you can meditate in.

A Statue of Christ welcomes everyone at the main entrance....




The stairs allow you to climb right through the gauntlet of crosses...

The most interesting part was when you could actually see some symbol amongst all the "mess".
Like the "All Seeing Eye of God"....

Or seeing this magnficent carving of Christ and wondering how old it is....



An angel or saint?  We weren't sure, but we had to admire the skill of the carver and the love put into the work.

The exact number of crosses is unknown, but estimates put it at about 100,000 in 2006, and that was 6 years ago!

Is this place a shrine or just an "oddity"?  That is for each visitor to decide, but there is no doubt about it....this is one unique place to visit in Lithuania!

  And now that we have visited this well-known tourist site....

 we can "Cross" it off our list of places to see!