Gate of Dawn str.

Terrified by the Tatar invasion in 1503 citizens of Vilnius asked Aleksandras, the Grand Duke of Lithuania for a permission to fence the town. The stonewall had defensive towers and five gates. It was finished in 1522. The Gate of Dawn with the picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary then was in the most dangerous eastern part of the wall.

The Carmelite monks who established themselves nearby the Gate began to take care of the picture in 1626. In 1671, seventeen miracles were already confirmed under a vow and documented in the chronicles.

In 1702 Vilnius was occupied by the Swedes. They forbade to venerate the picture publicly and to gather in the street in front of the Gate. In the battle trying to regain the Gate, a bullet was put through the picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Since 1671 the picture was placed in a wooden chapel on the Gate. The chapel was destroyed in the Vilnius fire of 1715. The painting however was saved by the Carmelites and returned to a new brick chapel four years later.

Under the order of the tsarist government the wall of the town was pulled down in 1799�1802. Still due to the respect to the picture, honored by both Catholics and Orthodox, the Gate of Dawn was left.

Before World War II liturgies were celebrated in the Gate of Dawn chapel from sunrise until noon, and in the evening a litany and hymns were sung in praise of Mary. During the services not only the chapel but the entire street used to be filled with worshipers. Pilgrims were especially numerous on the third Sunday after Easter, Whitsuntide, and Nov. 16, the feast of the Mother of Mercy. Men, who passed by the Gate of Dawn removed their hats; this old custom was observed even by non-Catholics.

During Soviet times many pilgrims from Byelorussia, who were deprived of all of their sanctuaries, used to come and visit the Gate.

On September 4, 1993 the Pope John Paul II prayed the rosary in Au�ros Vartai. He told he had this desire since he prayed in front of the Image of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Au�ros Vartai in the Lithuanian Chapel in the Basilica of St. Peter in Vatican right after his inauguration.