Fridays during Lent: The Stations of the Cross and a legend from the Kurpie Region

​From the earliest days of Christianity, pilgrims have journeyed to Jerusalem to walk in the footsteps once taken by Jesus Christ on the road to Calvary.  Indeed, it was pilgrims who originally performed the stations (although it wasn’t called that back then) when they visited Jerusalem and prayed at the sites of Jesus’ Passion. It took centuries for it to evolve into what Christians today call the Way of the Cross or the Stations of the Cross, the devotion which commemorates the Passion and death of Jesus Christ

The yellow line depicts the route that is believed by many to follow the path that Jesus walked, carrying his cross, on the way to His crucifixion.Photo credit:  https://santeos.pl/droga-krzyzowa-jak-to-sie-zaczelo/

     After Constantine the I issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD which allowed  Christianity to be a freely practiced religion, the holy city of Jerusalem became a mecca, a sacred place of pilgrimage for European Christians. But by the 7th century , the flow of pilgrims was effectively cut off with the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem, a control which would not be threatened until the beginning of the Crusades whose goal was to restore the holy city of Jerusalem  to Christian control.

     One of the illustrious pilgrims who devoted much effort to enable Christian pilgrims to visit the Holy Land was Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) who traveled to Egypt with the Fifth Crusade and walked into a Muslim camp to meet the Sultan Melek-el-Kamel. As a result he, as well as his friars, were granted safe conduct to visit the holy places. In 1217, St. Francis founded the Custody of the Holy Land to guard and promote the devotion to holy sites.
The Holy Land changed hands many times between Christian crusaders and Muslims over the centuries with evictions and expulsions on both sides.  In the 13th century the Franciscan order was allowed back into Jerusalem. Their earlier efforts to guard and protect the holy sites was later recognized when the Franciscans were officially proclaimed guardians of the shrines of the Holy Land by Pope Clement VI in 1342. The Franciscans accompanied pilgrims as they visited the sites and told the story of Jesus’ death with time for reflection and prayer at each site. Through their efforts, the Passion of Christ as a spiritual devotion, truly began to flourish.

     William Wey, an English pilgrim, who visited the Holy Land in 1458 and again in 1462, is credited with the term “stations” and interestingly enough, his description of the way a pilgrim followed the steps of Christ was in reverse from what is done today. Instead of beginning at Pilates house, the steps moved from Mount Calvary to Pilate’s house.

     In the 16th century, the path that Jesus would have taken, forced by the Roman soldiers on the way to his crucifixion, was officially titled the Via Dolorosa (Sorrowful Way), or simply the Way of the Cross or Stations of the Cross. (Wikipedia photo)

     In 1686, Pope Innocent XI, realizing that few people could travel to the Holy Land due to Muslim oppression (again), granted the Franciscans the right to erect stations in all of their churches.  In later years Pope Clement XII permitted stations to be erected in all churches and fixed the number at 14 (the number varied over the centuries).  In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV exhorted all priests to enrich their churches with the Way of the Cross, which had to include 14 crosses and to be accompanied with pictures or images of each particular station. In Catholic churches (it is also practiced by the Lutheran and Anglican faiths), The Way of the Cross is depicted in paintings or sculptures placed most often on the side walls of the church.

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Polish army walking the Stations of the Cross in Jerusalem 1944. Photo: polona.pl

     The Franciscans began to introduce the Way of the Cross, called Droga Krzyżowa, to their churches. In Poland, the oldest surviving Polish text, titled Sposób nabożeństwa droga krzyżowa nazywanego, “The Manner of  Devotion called the Way of the Cross,” was published in Wrocław in 1731. When one counts the number of churches and calvaries (outdoor reproductions of the Via Dolorosa) and crossesthat dot the landscape of  Poland, The Way of the Cross has withstood the test of centuries and remains a very spiritual devotion among the faithful, especially during Lent and most significantly on Fridays during the Lenten season.

A Legend from Kurpie Region

     The Puszcza Zielona, the Green Kurpie Region, in the northeast corner of Poland was a place of erection of numerous crosses throughout the centuries.  On a church wall in Nowogród there was at one time a painting (lost during a remodeling in 1904) depicting Christ and a Kurp (the name given to a person from the Kurpie region) carrying a cross to Golgota.  Adam Chętnik, an untiring scholar of the region, documented that the painting was connected to a popular legend:
 
               The Lord Jesus left Pilate and began the road to death carrying His cross to the hill of Golgota.  He was tortured, beaten, dripping with blood and sweat and stumbled with the heavy load on the uneven road. The Jews who walked along were in no hurry to help.  A Kurp passing by saw this and felt terrible sorrow for the person with the crown of thorns.  He pushed his way through the throng and took the cross on his left shoulder which immediately eased the Lord Jesus. And Jesus looked over, smiled, blessed him and as the Kurp was leaving, said to him: For that, that you have a good heart, may you and your countrymen never be without wood - for your own needs and for crosses.  And there grew the enormous forests of Puszcza Zielona, and the Kurps found themselves rich in wood and everyone who could, wherever they could, erected crosses.

A blessed Lenten season.

Sources:
​Chętnik, Adam. "Krzyże i Kapliczki Kurpiowskie."  Polska Sztuka Ludowa. 1977 
https://www.liturgia.pl/O-Drodze-Krzyzowej
​santeos.pl/droga-krzyzowa-jak-to-sie-zaczelo/