Lietuvos kalvarijų Kryžiaus kelių apieginių papročių bendroji ir vietinė tradicija

Abstract

From this viewpoint, the Kalvarijos Cross Road is an example which was built in the culture of Lithuanian nation. Thus, Catholicism was able to adopt local religious-cultural conditions to the wholeness and dogmatism of Catholicism and to the churchy calendar celebrations and ceremonies. The Christianity is universal, but it's manifestations have national nuances. The lithuanians adorned the Rome Catholic rituals by their own religious customs accordingly to their spirit. The Catholic liturgy consists of Holy Mass and additional rituals of sacred service (the practices of folk devotion, which occur not during the Holy Masses, are performed in local language; appealing to the service-book of Lithuanian Catholic Church these practices of folk devotions: Blessed Virgin Mary Hours, May-Days, June Divine Worship, spoken and chanted chaplet of Blessed Virgin Mary and the chaplets of Blessed Jesus Name, Laments, Mournful Hours, Lays and Kalvarijos Cross-roads, belong to this category). The Kalvarijos Cross Roads, which are on high hills or in Churchyards, distinguishes by it's uniqueness among the folk devotion practices of Lithuanian Catholic Church. They are in Žemaicių Kalvarija, Verkiai (in Vilnius), Beržoras, Tytuvėnai, Mosėdis and in Vepriai. The object of the investigation is Kalvarijos Cross Roads in Lithuania. The aim of this investigation is to reveal the relationship between Lithuanian ethnic and Christian values while naturalizing the cult of Kalvarijos Cross Road. In order to reveal this relationship, it was invoked the data of folklor, archeology and Christian science. The goals of investiogation were: firstly - to reveal what the folklor tells about the investigated object, secondly - to find out the place of this fenomenon in Christian Science and thirdly - to determin the relationhip between the ethnic and Christian values of this fenomenon, using archeological data. The results of the investigations prove our hypothesis, that Christianity unfolded in Lithuanian Cross Roads accepting the content of some of the pre-Christian cultural parts, but remaining unanimous in it's organizational structure - it conveys the content of Christ suffering road religious doctrine in the way acceptable to Lithuanians.