The Gates to the Heart of the City and of Mercy – The Visitation Ensemble

The Old Town of Vilnius is encircled by seven hills, from which the unfolding panorama delights both the residents of Vilnius themselves and the city’s guests. On one of these hills, in the month of June, the World Apostolic Congress on Mercy will take place. And although this hill is a historically important place with many different layers, it may be that it is completely unknown even to those born and raised in this city. The main organizer of the upcoming Congress, Inesa Čaikauskienė, mentions that while living in Vilnius, from many angles, we see the dome of the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, located on this hill; yet not everyone can name what church it is — for 80 years we have not been able to approach it, visit it, pray in it. We talk about this place — touched by the painful history of the country, hidden from us, devastated, but in one way or another witnessing God’s mercy for hundreds of years — with Inesa Čaikauskienė and Gilma Teodora Gylytė, the city architect and director of Rebuild the Wonderful.

The Hill of the Savior – The Divine Mercy Center of Vilnius

That is how is presented the location for the upcoming Congress. As Inesa shares, “This place in Vilnius bears witness to God’s mercy in a unique way through the history of the nation and the Church, as well as through the life of a real person (even now a prison remains on one side, while a hospice operates on the other). It is an important pilgrimage site also because it is this place where the Image of Divine Mercy first saw the world — the image that Jesus Himself asked to be painted. What happened here a little more than 90 years ago is today a global reality that has reached every continent. All of this has a concrete geographical location.”

This place is linked to Mercy not only because – in the early 20th century Blessed Fr. Michał Sopoćko lived here, the Image was painted here, and now the Sisters of Jesus the Merciful are based here nursing the gravely ill in the neighboring hospice –  but also because Mercy has been unfolding here far earlier. About 300 years ago, this outlying part of the city began to see the emergence of new Catholic religious communities: first came the Congregation of the Mission (the Vincentian Brothers), founded by St. Vincent de Paul to perform works of mercy; they quickly brought in the Daughters of Charity to help care for the sick. Not long afterward, the Visitation Sisters – the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary (instituted by St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal) – arrived in Vilnius and established their convent right beside the Missionaries. They constructed here the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which, as historians attest, was one of the first in the world to rise very soon after the visions of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque — visions that gave birth to the worldwide devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The later history of this place was touched by painful events that shattered the peaceful life and flourishing of the country and the city: during the years of Tsarist Russian oppression the church was turned into an Orthodox church, and during the Soviet occupation a prison was established in the buildings of the monastery and the church. Amid all this, in 1934, in the workshop of painter Eugenijus Kazimirovskis operating in the former monastery building, the Image of Divine Mercy was painted. Inesa shares that even the prison, no matter how much it devastated this space — especially the church — is also connected with mercy: “While organizing the Congress we had the chance to meet the prison chaplain, who told us impressive stories. A prison is a borderline place where you arrive having lost your humanity and your face — and it is hard to regain it. And yet right here the face of Jesus is painted — the face of Mercy, the face that restores hope and faith.”

All these circumstances led the Congress organizers, rather than choosing convenient city spaces adapted for conferences, to boldly turn toward The Hill of the Savior and the Mercy Center, inviting us on a journey, a pilgrimage, “in which through prayer, testimonies, worship, the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and meeting one another we would experience mercy in our own lives and recognize what kind of Mercy the world of today needs — beginning from our families, communities, and parishes — so that God’s mercy would become the face of our city, our country, and our very selves.”

All Paths Leading to the Garden of Paradise

The story of how the surroundings of the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus looked then and how they look now is continued by Gilma Teodora, who emphasizes that, upon delving deeply into the historical sources, this place revealed itself even more clearly as an exceptionally important space in the city — one to which all paths should lead: “When we began laying out possibilities with the Congress organizers — the Archbishop and Inesa — on how to open the space to pilgrims and the city’s residents, we saw this Vilnius church like the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Jesus standing on the hill of Montmartre in Paris, to which all the cozy surrounding streets lead and toward which the entire city looks. The further we worked, the more the puzzle pieces of histories that had been lost somewhere began to fit together. Looking at it urbanistically and seeing that this place is even higher than the Three Crosses Hill, its importance only grows.” The Congress team, searching for already-trodden or potentially trodden paths, discovered that Daukšos Street leads directly from the Gate of Dawn to the main entrance gates. It was also noted that within the ensemble itself there was a Paradise Street and a Gardens of Paradise. Thus, as Gilma Teodora shares, “one could even say that all this is perhaps a bit far-fetched, maybe a little too sweet — the highest hill, a church upon it, and right beside it a Gardens of Paradise. The whole of Vilnius turns toward the place where paradise is. You couldn’t invent something like this today, yet it was done three hundred years ago, and all we need to do is unlock those codes and their meaning for the city.” Around the church and monastery were many manors and abundant nature; the high society lived there.

Today one would hardly feel as though one was in paradise if one strolled along the walls of the fenced-off territory. Next to it stands a Lidl supermarket, a car wash, and a wide and busy street; inside the grounds a prison is still operating. The church itself was repeatedly diminished — even its roof was changed in the Tsarist period to a completely different one, to a roof of an Orthodox church; the monastery roofs were also altered and lowered by at least 5–6 metres. In this way an attempt was made to divert the city’s gaze from this special place. During the [Soviet] prison period, one of the most beautiful Baroque churches in Vilnius was divided by concrete slabs: “You climb up and see that a slab cuts a magnificent Baroque niche exactly in half, brutally chopping it apart — this sight is like the battle between good and evil. (…) This hill was noble, but it is no longer so: both the church and the monastery and the entire surroundings have been disfigured. The nobility here was not only in the shrine itself, but also in the whole environment, in the people of Vilnius who every day created their lives and homes here.”

Exhibition “The Open Gates. The Visitation Monastery Ensemble”

In early June the Visitation Ensemble will open its gates not only by inviting everyone to the World Apostolic Congress on Mercy, but also by offering an opportunity to get to know this city space through a visit to the open-air exhibition: “The Open Gates. The Visitation Monastery Ensemble”. The main creator of the exhibition, Gilma Teodora, shares that its aim is to tell the story of this space and to show the contrast between what was once created there and what we see today. On each of the fifteen panels planned throughout the grounds and their approaches, visitors will be able to view: archival photographs by J. Bulhakas, by both E. and B. Zdanovskis and by other photographers, as well as historical drawings, maps and documents from Lithuanian archives — all displayed alongside images of the current situation. “The historical material — the extraordinarily beautiful photographs and, next to them, the devastated scene — is shocking. You even begin to blame yourself — how dare we, the people of Vilnius, treat this space this way, what are we doing when we have such a treasure in our hands? This exhibition seeks not only to acquaint people with the history, but also to shake them so that they feel the urge to act, to do something, to restore the nobility,” Gilma Teodora shares.

The exhibition will be open from June 1. Throughout the month, guided tours of the Monastery Ensemble grounds will take place, while the exhibition panels can be viewed until October 1. The exhibition was organized by Rebuild the Wonderful, the Vilnius Archdiocese and the Museum of Ecclesiastical Heritage.

Dreams of the Future

I asked the interviewees how they envision the future of this place after the Congress, the Exhibition, and in a few years or even more.

Inesa: I hope and believe that what we are doing in preparation for the Congress is the beginning of the process of returning this place to the face of Vilnius, and that we are witnesses to that process. I know that after the Congress the practical work will begin — the restoration of the church dome. I very much want this place to have its face restored, just as to so many people in this space. It deserves to become the hill from which the message of Divine Mercy radiates to the people of Vilnius, to Lithuanians, and to the whole world.

Gilma Teodora: I would like this hill to become alive, so that, just like Montmartre, all paths would lead to it and people would want to be here — to pray, to rest, to meet one another, and to drink coffee. Vilnius is a sacred and holy city. It is not enough for it to have only a valley; it also needs a hill that would shine with nobility and holiness. Urbanistically and architecturally those elements already exist; now all that is needed is a great deal of effort to bring them to life.

Translated by Ramutis Kiparskis.