On the history and feast of the “Protection of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn”

An intriguing medieval fresco can be found in the church of Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune in Strasbourg, France. It depicts fifteen kings processing by horseback, each carrying a standard bearing the name of his respective nation. The image is known as the “March of the Nations toward Christianity.” It depicts the chronological order of when each nation was baptized. Last in line is the standard reading “Litavia, Lithuania.”

Lithuania was the last pagan nation in Europe to convert to Christianity with the baptism of Grand Duke Jogalia after his marriage to Queen Jadwiga of Poland in 1387. This established a de facto personal union between these two nations, which were ruled by the same monarch. A formal establishment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth came in 1569.

Throughout its history, each Christian nation has developed its own customs, stories, and shrines. Most cherished by the Lithuanian people is the icon of the Mother of God displayed in a chapel above one of Vilnius’ historic city gates. November 16th marks the indulgenced feast of this hallowed icon. Countless Lithuanian pilgrims journey this day to the Gate of Dawn in their capital city, seeking the intercession of the patroness of their homeland who has been a symbol of hope and national identity in times of trial.

Amid Tatar attacks on Lithuanian lands, Grand Duke Aleksandras permitted its citizens to erect a defensive wall around Vilnius in 1503. The gate that now houses the famed Marian image was first mentioned in 1514, referred to as Medininkai Gate as it led to a village of that name south of the city. Later documents from the same century called it “Sharp Gate”—Ostra Brama in Polish and Porta Acialis in Latin. It is not known exactly when or why the Lithuanian name “Aušros Vartai, Gate of Dawn” was adopted. This title is fitting, however, because Mary, especially on the feast of her nativity, is often referred to as the “dawn of our salvation. ” Before the coming of Christ her Son, the world was immersed in the darkness of sin and death. Like the dawn appearing over the horizon that promises the light of the sun to scatter the darkness of night, the arrival of Mary in history can be likened to the dawn of our salvation. Her birth promises the near coming of Christ her Son, the Light of the World that scatters the darkness of every evil.

There are different stories and theories about the origins of the icon. One belief is that it was acquired in the 14th century by Grand Duke Algirdas as a war trophy from Crimea. Algirdas has an interesting life story. He put to death three members of his court for being Christian in 1347. The relics of these sainted martyrs can be venerated at the Orthodox Monastery of the Holy Spirit in the Old Town of Vilnius very near to the Gate of Dawn. As Tertullian famously stated: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Duke Algirdas would eventually return to Christianity and even became a monk towards the end of his life.

The most accepted theory, due to recent studies, posits that the icon was painted in the early 17th century, likely based on a work by the Flemish artist, Martin de Vos. The Mother of God is presented with her hands folded over her heart before a large halo in the form of a sunburst. It was likely commissioned by the governor of Vilnius to adorn the Gate of Dawn. The icon initially was hung in an outdoor niche in the gateway, complimenting another image that can still be seen in situ of Jesus as “Savior of the World.”

In 1626, the Discalced Carmelites received land near the Gate of Dawn to build a monastery, which they dedicated to their spiritual mother, St. Teresa of Avila. The Carmelites developed great affection for the painting of the Mother of God at the nearby city gate and would organize prayer services before it among the locals. Miraculous healings and conversions, attributed to prayers offered before the image, were faithfully recorded in a special register by the Carmelites.

The wonderworking powers of the Mary at the Gate of Dawn drew so much devotion that, in 1668, the city formally entrusted the icon’s care to the Carmelites. In 1671, under the direction of a friar named Charles of the Holy Spirit, a chapel was built to enshrine the image above the gate. The Carmelites would celebrate Mass before the revered icon and preach from a balcony to crowds gathered on the street below.

A Carmelite Friar named Hilary published a book detailing the early history of the icon in 1761, as well as the many miracles attributed to the prayers offered before it.

One such miracle occurred in 1702, when Vilnius was captured by the Swedish army in the Great Northern War. The Protestant Swedes forbade public prayer at the chapel above the Gate of Dawn. One soldier, making a mockery of Marian devotion, fired a shot at the icon. At dawn on Holy Saturday, the heavy iron city gates below the chapel fell upon and killed four Swedish soldiers. Seeing this as a sign, the Lithuanians mounted a successful counterattack the next day on Easter. Their victory was attributed to the protection afforded them by the intercession of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn.

Many copies of the icon were made and devotion to it spread among both Catholics and Orthodox throughout the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and even into Russia. The revered 18th-century Russian elder and ascetic revered as a saint by Orthodox Christians, Seraphim of Sarov, was devoted to this icon. He is often depicted in his own iconography as praying before it.

Orthodox Christians have a custom of covering highly venerated icons with a silver riza, leaving open spaces for the subject’s face and feet. This was also done for Mother of God at the Dawn Gate. The common devotion rendered to the Mother of God among both Catholics and Orthodox Christians of Lithuania, Poland, Russia and beyond is a source of hope for the cause of Christian unity.

Though the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was one of the largest and most prosperous European nations of the time, it suffered much due to successive conflicts with Sweden and Russia.

As mentioned before, the Swedish army occupied Vilnius in 1702. The bullet hole from one soldier’s sacrilegious mockery can still be seen in the image today.

After the Swedes came the gradual dismantling of the commonwealth through three successive partitions of its land between Habsburg Austria, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire. The final partition came in 1795 with Russia annexing most of Lithuania’s territory.

During this period, the city of Vilnius also suffered devastation from numerous fires during which its citizens always made recourse to the Dawn Gate Mother of God to spare their city.

By God’s Providence, of the ten city gates surrounding Vilnius, only the Gate of Dawn remains after all others were destroyed by order of the occupying government at the end of the 18th century.

Uprisings in 1794, 1831, and 1863 testify to the resolve of the Lithuanian people to gain their freedom. In the midst of this resistance, the icon of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn became a symbol of national identity. Though their nation was lost, the icon remained, and with it, the hope that by the Mother of God’s intercession, Lithuania’s freedom would be restored.

The Gate of Dawn is two stories tall. Its façade is topped by a triangular pediment. Exterior inscriptions were probably added during a restoration in 1829. On the triangular pediment above is the Eye of Providence with the Marian title “Mater Misericordiae, Mother of Mercy” and below is the first line of one of the most ancient prayers dedicated to the Virgin Mary, “Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, We fly to thy protection.” These words were originally written in Polish, but after a popular revolt in 1863, the Tsarist authorities required they be replaced with the text in Latin to stamp out Polish nationalism.

The Lithuanians would finally gain a short period of independence in 1918 towards the end of the First World War, which would end with the rise of the godless ideologies of Nazism and Communism. During this brief period of freedom, on July 5, 1927, the icon was adorned with a crown blessed by Pope Pius XI and given the title “Mother of Mercy.”

The Polish mystic and saint, Faustina Kowalska, is remembered as the “Apostle of Divine Mercy.” She received many visions in her convent in Vilnius and was tasked with producing an image of the Merciful Lord in the pattern that she saw, inscribed with the words: “Jesus, I trust in You.” The first painting was made by Eugene Kazimierowski at the direction of St. Faustina. This image which is now revered across the Catholic world, was exposed for veneration for the very first time in the chapel at the Gate of Dawn in 1935, only eight years after the icon there was given the title “Mother of Mercy.”

The beleaguered Lithuanian people would soon be occupied again by Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1940, and then by the Nazis in 1941, and then again by the Soviets after the Red Army’s Baltic Offensive of 1944. This began a period of “sovietization” that forbade public worship. This era was characterized by massive deportations of anyone suspected of supporting resistance movements. Hundreds of thousands were sent to Siberia. The estimated death toll among Lithuanian deportees from 1944to 1955 is 20,000, a quarter of them children.

The many exiles and emigrants brought copies of the icon of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn with them that adorned homes in Siberian exile, refugee camps, and churches built by Lithuanian expatriate communities. Devotion to the icon was a sign of national identity and a source of hope.

On March 11, 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet Republic to break away from the Soviet Union a year before its dissolution. With their newfound religious freedom, the Gate of Dawn became a place of public pilgrimage. The indulgenced feast of November 16, called “The Protection of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn”, was first established in 1735. After Lithuania gained its freedom, the feast was quickly reestablished.

The countless pilgrims who come to gaze upon the hallowed icon will see its chapel covered with silver votive offerings left by those who came before them, bringing their worries to the Mother of Mercy with a trust in her protection.