Esplanade
For the occasion of the 400-year jubilee of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s apparition at Šiluva, the areas between the Basilica and the Apparition Chapel were joined into a single open space. The esplanade is the venue for the main acts of worship during the indulgenced feast. It contains a statue of the Blessed Virgin recalling believers’ unrelenting efforts to defend their faith. Catholics erected the statue during the 19th-century Russian occupation in order to block a plan by the Tsarist authorities to build an Orthodox church on that spot, directly in front of the shrine. During the Soviet occupation, the statue was removed and replaced by a monument to townspeople who had died for the cause of communism. The statue of Mary returned after Lithuania regained independence, and was recast in bronze for the 2008 jubilee. Stations of the mysteries of the Rosary also embellish the square. In 2008, to mark the 15th anniversary of the visit of Pope John Paul II to Lithuania, a sculpture of him (by Czesław Dźwigaj of Krakow) was erected in the square. Nearby, beside the esplanade, stands a new residence for pilgrims.
