page_title: Barbora Žagarietė
section_title: Veneration
hierarchical_section_title: Barbora Žagarietė / Veneration
caption_attribution_description: Lietuvių: Žagarės regioninis parkas: Senosios Žagarės bažnyčia
context_page_description: Barbora of Žagarė was a Roman Catholic Servant of God from Žagarė, then Grand Duchy of Lithuania. According to oral history, Barbora distinguished herself by her Christian virtues and died young under obscure circumstances. Her remains were said to be incorruptible. This inspired a strong following among local people, and numerous miracles are attributed to her. In 2005, the Diocese of Šiauliai began the process of Barbora's beatification and canonization.
context_section_description: The virgin of Žagarė was first mentioned by Antoni Dominik Tyszkiewicz, Bishop of Samogitia, in his report to the Holy See in 1755. The report was discovered by historian Jonas Totoraitis in 1938. The bishop reported the story of her unburned corpse and seven other miracles, mostly healing of various ailments, said to have taken place between 1735 and 1748. On 7 January 1860, Motiejus Valančius tasked the parish priest at the Old Žagarė church with registering miracles or other divine graces attributed to Barbora's intercession. By December 1940, 97 miracles had been documented, but none have been canonically investigated. The book listing the miracles was thought to have been destroyed during World War II. However, after the fall of Communism in 1990, Boleslovas Babrauskas, parish priest at St Peter and Paul's church in Žagarė, found it. The miracles mainly related to curing ailments related mostly to legs and eyes.
  Local people venerated Barbara as if she were a saint. It was common to circle her coffin three times on knees. Her cult merged with that of Saint Barbara, as the women shared not only name but also similar life stories. Local people celebrated the feast of Barbora Žagarietė on 4 December and sang hymns that were translated from Polish and initially meant for St. Barbara. Other commemorations take place on 29 June, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, and 2–9 July, the Great Žemaičių Kalvarija Festival. To express his gratitude to Žagarietė for healing his sister, Alfonsas Lažinskas commissioned an oak wayside shrine by Rimantas Zinkevičius to be installed in the churchyard of the Old Žagarė Church. The shrine was blessed by Eugenijus Bartulis, Bishop of Šiauliai, on 6 August 2006.
  The possibility of Barbora's beatification was investigated by Janina z Ostroróg-Sadowskich Umiastowska, philanthropist and widow of Władysław Umiastowski, and Władysław Kwiatkowski, rector of the Polish College in Rome, in 1937–1938. In November 2004, Eugenijus Bartulis sent a request to the Holy See to begin the beatification and canonization for Žagarietė. In May 2005, the Holy See replied that there were no obstacles in initiating the case; it was officially opened by Bartulis on 24 September 2005. In 2006, a group of nine scientists was dispatched on an expedition to find and collect information on Žagarietė.
caption: The old church in Žagarė
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "NIKON", "Image Model": "E8800", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ACD Systems Digital Imaging", "Image DateTime": "2009:06:12 20:22:34", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "233", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2222", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10324", "EXIF ExposureTime": "5/1126", "EXIF FNumber": "63/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:06:11 10:05:13", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:06:11 10:05:13", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "31/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "89/10", "EXIF SubSecTime": "218", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1240", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "930", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2142", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "35", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}