Lady of Ilača Gospa ilačka | |
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Location | Ilača, Croatia |
Type | Marian apparition |
Approval | 1865 |
Part of a series on the |
Catholic Church in Croatia |
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The Marian Apparitions of Ilača were reported sightings of miraculous events in Croatia in 1865. This was seven years after the Lourdes apparitions. [1] Ilača became the most important Catholic pilgrimage site in the historical region of Syrmia. [1] Initially, church authorities tried to prevent congregations from pilgrimage. [1] Later, it was permitted by bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer. [2]
In 1865, a shepherd from Ilača, Petar Lazin, claimed seeing water on the middle of the field road although no rain had fallen, and that once he made a hole, water started flowing and continued thereafter. [1] On the same night, another villager, Đuka Ambrušević saw the Virgin Mary with a child. In his dream, she told him that it was her spring, and that he must build a wall around it so that livestock could not drink from it. [1] When he woke up, he saw the image from his dream next to his bed. [1]
In 1866, a small chapel was built next to the spring, and in 1870 construction of a church began. [1] Ilača became the target of pilgrimage for Roman Catholic Croats, Germans, Hungarians as well as for Eastern-rite Catholic Pannonian Rusyns. [1] During the Croatian War of Independence, the church was destroyed by tanks of the Yugoslav People's Army active in the area of self-proclaimed Serbian Autonomous Oblast of SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia. [1] Once the UNTAES finished its peace mission in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia in 1998, pilgrimage resumed. [1]
A documentary about Ilača pilgrimage was recorded in 2010. [3] It was presented at the UK Christian Film Festival and Lecce International Tourfilm Festival. [4]