BISTRICA

BISTRICA. – A small town in northern Croatia with a great Marian shrine, whose origins go back to the year 1545, when the people, fleeing before the Turks, brought thither the miraculous statue of the Madonna holding the Child in her arms, previously venerated at Vinski Vrh. From that time B. became the centre of the Marian cult, of pilgrimages and of popular devotion throughout Upper Croatia. The chronicle of the shrine records countless miracles and graces obtained through the intercession of the Virgin. The popes Benedict XIV and Clement XIII enriched the shrine with notable and numerous privileges, while Pius XI raised it to the dignity of a minor basilica. In 1935 the statue of the Virgin, proclaimed Queen of the Croats, was solemnly crowned by the Croatian metropolitan of Zagreb. Thus today the shrine of B. is for Croatia a second Pompeii.