All Saints at Krakow’s Rakowicki cemetery has left quite an impression on me. First of all because of the light produced by the huge amount of candles. People bring (often new) grave lights of colored glass and light them together with their children and other relatives at the graves. They stand around the grave, have a little chat, say a little prayer or take their time to contemplate. Some keep lovingly cleaning and rearranging flowers and lights on the grave while names of the deceased are read out loud from the cemetery chapel.
Everywhere people are searching – not easy in the dark! – for the graves of their loved ones and for the graves to want to honour in these days. Apart from the prayers and name reading from the chapel, there was also a concert for the dead Memento Vitae at one of the side entrances.
I was most impressed by the affect of this huge number of candles, like someone said: 1+1=3.
other pages on All Saints/All Souls in Kraków:
All Saints, honouring the Martyrs