Šiluva was first mentioned in 1457 in relation to
the building of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the
Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Bartholomew by the Lithuanian noble Petras
Gedgaudas. Later the Feast of the
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary attracted huge numbers of the faithful
to Šiluva, some from as far away of what later became Protestant Prussia.
With the advent of the Reformation in 16th century
Lithuania, many of the inhabitants of the Šiluva region converted to
