What is Camino Lituano?
Camino Lituano is a modern-day pilgrimage route across Lithuania. It starts on the Lithuanian-Latvian border, spans 500 km across the country and finishes on the Lithuanian-Polish border, where pilgrims can continue to Camino Polaco, the Polish Camino.
Camino Lituano is divided into stages. Each stage is about 25 km long. At the end of each stage there is accommodation available (albergues) and places to eat and rest. Camino Lituano consists of 20 stages (or 20 average day-trips) from Latvian-Lithuanian state border to Lithuanian-Polish state border.
While walking the Camino Lituano, pilgrims will visit churches, monasteries, shrines, cultural and historical sites.
Camino Lituano is based on the idea of the Camino de Santiago.
Why Camino Lituano?
Camino Lituano is for a Lithuanian version of St. James’s Way.
Also, it connects Lithuania to the network of pilgrim’s routes across Europe. The connection is to the Polish Way, or Camino Polaco.
On the Camino Lituano pilgrims and hikers will visit churches, chapels, shrines, hillforts, observation towers, manors, towers, places of interest in Lithuania.
Yellow arrows and St. James's scallop shells mark the path of Camino Lituano (just like Camino de Santiago).
Camino Lituano community on the pilgrimage from Sejny (Poland) to Lithuania, January of 2017
History of Camino Lituano
Camino Lituano was founded in 2016 by a group of enthusiastic Lithuanian pilgrims and travelers. Their aim is for the route to become a popular path for pilgrims, hikers and everyone else.
The opening of the Camino Lituano was organized on July 2017, in a small town of Punia, which is situated on the Camino Lituano. During the festival local people were introduced to the idea of Camino Lituano and attended a photo exhibition.
After the official part was over, pilgrims walked more than 100 km in 4 days and visited towns and villages along the Camino Lituano, slept in the albergues, met local communities and made sure the route was well marked and accessible to everyone.
The next step for the Camino Lituano community is to continue the development of the new stages, until the path is completed.
Aims of Camino Lituano organization
• Further develop Camino Lituano into thrilling, modern-day pilgrimage route, which represents traditional idea of St. James’s Way. • Represent Lithuanian culture and heritage. • Promote active lifestyle. • Attract pilgrims from abroad. • Promote the idea of modern-day pilgrimage.
Caminos de Santiago in Spain
One of most prominent pilgrimage destinations of the world is the city of Santiago de Compostela, the shrine of St. James the Apostle and the countrywide network of Caminos de Santiago in Spain.
The route of Camino de Santiago was known since many centuries ago. By the legend, the remains of St. James the Apostle were delivered by a ship from Jerusalem to the city of Santiago, and burried in the local cathedral. The believers of those days began to visit the cathedral and the shrine, and gradually treaded pilgrim paths. Some paths where walked just for periods of time, and some others became as permanent routes of pilgrimage. They were much popular in the middle ages. However, plaque, religion reformations and wars in Europe stopped the popularity of pilgrimage. In 1980, only a few pilgrims arrived to the city of Santiago de Compostela.
Since 1984, the renaissance of the Camino has begun. The most famous renovator of the Camino was the pastor Elías Valiña Sampedro. He created the yellow arrows and marked with them many kilometers of the Camino.
Elías Valiña was born in Saria (100 kilometers from Santiago). From his young days he was much engaged in Camino de Santiago. He studied the history of the Camino of Santiago, his doctoral thesis was on the Camino. After the studies in Salamanca, he lived and worked in town O Cebreiro, Galicia region.
When Don Elias started promoting the ancient route, it was in most places impassable and forgotten. Valiña decided to define the original sections of the pilgrimage route, and after convincing mayors and other parishes and attracting different associations of friends of the Way to become involved, the task of marking the original route began.
Don Elías began to use the yellow arrows as path markers in 1970-1980. He traveled along the route on his old Citroen and painted arrows on waysides to make the path visible. Why yellow? - Mainly, for these reasons:
• Yellow marking is well visible and seen from far,
• Yellow paints are widely used in Galicia region to mark hiking trails, and many pilgrims come from these lands,
• Thirdly, Don Elias used paint cans to mark the routes and they were of yellow color.
There is a famous story on how once the pastor was stopped by the Civil Guards, and caught with a can of yellow paint in his hand, drawing striking yellow arrows. They asked him what he was doing so close to the French border. ”Preparing a great invasion from France,” was his answer. Few years later, that led to thousands of pilgrims and to a new and rediscovered pilgrimage.
Another strong influence to Camino revival was done by the famous writer Paulo Coelcho who walked the Camino to Santiago de Compostela and also wrote a book on his pilgrimage.
In 1993, Camino de Santiago was announced by UNESCO as the object of World Heritage.
According to the statistics by Santiago Pilgrim Office, in year 2016, 660 Lithuanian pilgrims walked Camino to the city of Santiago de Compostela.
http://www.pierre-compostelle.com/2013/03/des-cartes-des-chemins-de-compostelle.html
The ways of St. James in Europe
The ways of St. James are known not only in Spain but also in many other countries of Europe. These ways were walked and recently being walked by many pilgrims from all the Europe to the city of Santiago de Compostela.
Every country in Europe has its own ways of St. James and refer them differently by local language, for example, Chemin de Saint Jacques in France, Jakobsweg in Germany, Jacobsroute in Netherlands and Belgium, etc.
Recently, pilgrim ways become more regarded in countries, both individually in each country and across the entire European community.