Šiluva

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Šiluva is a small town of less than 1,000 inhabitants in western part of Lithuania, known as Samogitia.

Šiluva has been first mentioned in 1457 with the building of a Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Apostles SS. Peter and Bartholomew by a Lithuanian magnate Peter S. Gedgaudas. the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary attracted huge numbers of believers to Šiluva, some from as far as Protestant Prussia.

With the advent of Reformation in the 16th century Lithuania, most inhabitants of Šiluva region became Calvinist. The Marian Feast, however, continued until the church was eventually closed and destroyed circa 1569. The last parish priest, Father John Holubka, buried remaining church valuables and founding documents in an iron box close to the ruined church.

Subsequent attempts by the Catholics to regain the confiscated church through legal proceedings against the Calvinists were hindered by the fact no one knew the exact location of the original founding documents of the church. The Catholic faithful believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary miraculously intervened in the matter by appearing at the exact location of the old church, holding baby Jesus in her arms and weeping bitterly.^[1] The founding documents of the Catholic church were found shortly after the apparition, and in 1622 the Catholics won the restitution of the church.^[1] The famous Feasts of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary resumed in a small wooden church on the site of the apparition, and the picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary with the Divine Child became renowned for miracles. The current-day Basilica of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary was erected on the site in 1786.

Šiluva Chapel designed by Antoni Wiwulski

The devotion to Our Lady of Šiluva was suppressed once again during the Tsarist occupation of the 19th century, as the Feasts had become venues for sharing Lithuanian religious and secular books that were smuggled in from Prussia – in spite of a Tsarist ban of any Lithuanian publications in Latin characters. Following the restitution of Lithuania’s independence in 1918, the celebration in Šiluva became particularly famous. In the 1940’s, however, the Soviet occupation of Lithuania meant new campaign against popular religious traditions. The Soviet regime failed to completely suppress the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary although KGB routinely sabotaged the pilgrimages. The most notorious example of the Soviet interference occurred during the Feast of 1979, when government blocked all the roads to Šiluva after first spreading false rumors of a pig epidemic in the vicinity.

Throughout its turbulent history, Šiluva has remained the spiritual center for Catholic faithful from the whole Lithuania. The Feast of Šiluva has experienced a tremendous revival following the reestablishment of independence in 1990. Pope John Paul II made a special pilgrimage to pray at the National Shrine of Our Lady in Šiluva, while visiting Lithuania in 1993. On the tenth anniversary of the Pope’s visit, a new facility for pilgrims and candidate seminarians was blessed by Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevičius and given the name of The Home of John Paul II (Lithuanian: Jono Pauliaus II namai).