SILUVA -- Tens of thousands of pilgrims have descended on this tiny town to celebrate the "apparition" of the Virgin Mary 400 years ago, predating even the better-known miracles at Lourdes and Fatima.
Historically, Siluva in central Lithuania has been a focal point not only for Roman Catholics but also for Lithuanian national and cultural identity during decades of brutal Russian and Soviet domination.
The church maintains that in 1608 the Virgin Mary, holding an infant Christ, appeared above a rock to shepherds in a field near the town.
"There was a time when my beloved Son was adored by my people, but today people plow and sow," church teaching says Mary told the shepherds.
Many Lithuanian pilgrims pay homage by coming on foot. Locals say pilgrims have also traveled from neighboring Poland and as far as the United States for the week-long celebration.
"We see traffic jams on our street, but they are full of people on foot not in cars," local priest Father Erastas Murauskas told Agence France-Presse.
The Virgin's legendary apparition predates others revered in Catholicism, notably to a peasant girl in the French town of Lourdes in 1858 -- where Pope Benedict XVI visited on the anniversary last Sunday -- and to three shepherd children at Fatima, in Portugal, in 1917.
The Church holds the Virgin also appeared at Banneux, Belgium in 1933 and in Medugorje, Croatia in 1981.
Deeply devoted to Mary, the late Polish-born pontiff John Paul II visited Siluva on September 7, 1993.
Christianity first came to Lithuania in 1386 when the marriage of Lithuanian Grand Duke Vytautas and Queen of Poland Jadwiga forged an alliance between the two countries.
It was the last European country to adopt the Christian faith, nearly four centuries after its neighbors. Previously, the Teutonic knights, a German Roman Catholic order, had tried but failed to convert Lithuanians by force.
Catholicism became an integral element in the construction of the Lithuanian state and in shaping national identity.
"The defense of faith was regarded as integral to defending Lithuanian identity, culture and the nation," said Luidas Jovaisa, a Lithuanian academic specializing in the history of religion.
As a province of Tsarist Russia during the 19th century, Lithuania faced a policy of Russification. The Latin alphabet was banned and Roman Catholic churches were either closed or turned into Russian Orthodox churches.
"At this time, the bishop of Samogitia Monsignor Valancius was the first to organize the distribution of clandestine periodicals in Lithuanian, printed in the Latin alphabet in neighboring Germany," said Jovaisa.
"Later the nationalists used the network to distribute the first Lithuanian newspapers," he said.
It was the same scenario after Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 until it regained independence in 1990-91.
Under the Soviets, churches were transformed into warehouses or museums of atheism while practicing Catholics had to hide their faith.
"On the first anniversary of my husband's death, I wanted to put candles on his grave and the cemetery director took me for questioning," said Veronika, one of the first pilgrims to visit Siluva.
"When I found myself in a place where no one knew me, I went to confession in the Church, but I always dressed myself in a way so that I would never be recognized."
During Soviet times, the Church was the only institution that was officially recognized by the Soviets and not controlled by them, Jovaisa said.
"It's only logical that it became a centre of resistance," he said.
Lithuanians have not forgotten their struggles for freedom. Some pilgrims here carry Belarus flags to show their support for the opposition in Belarus, disputing the rule of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Others carry banners with messages of support for Georgia.
"We supported the Georgians in their fight for liberty because we took the same road to freedom," said another pilgrim Robertas, who declined to give his last name.
"For us, religion was a way to feel free."
