Ahead of one of its busiest weeks of the year, Bosnia’s famed Catholic pilgrimage shrine at Medjugorje has been defaced, with vandals blackening a statue of the Virgin Mary and setting fire to a nearby altar, authorities said.
The Marian shrine of Medjugorje, located about 140km southwest of Sarajevo, became widely known in the 1980s after reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the village.
Since then, it has grown into one of the Catholic world’s best-known pilgrimage destinations, drawing more than one million visitors annually.
Images carried by local media showed black spray paint smeared across the face of the central statue of the Virgin Mary, with the words “devil in a skirt” written on its pedestal.
Police said an investigation was under way after worshippers alerted authorities to “offensive messages” and a fire at the site.
Some of the graffiti, written in Polish and English, appeared to target those who relay messages linked to the alleged apparitions, figures known locally as “visionaries”.
The vandalism came just days before Medjugorje’s annual prayer gathering, held during the first week of August, when more than 50,000 young people from across the world are expected to arrive.
In September 2024, the Vatican formally recognised the shrine, while refraining from making a judgment on the messages the “visionaries” say they receive from the Virgin Mary and continue to share with the faithful.
That decision further raised the profile of the small village, which has attracted pilgrims since 1981, when six young people said they had seen the Virgin Mary.
The Medjugorje parish office said in a statement that preparations for the planned event were continuing and that repair work had already begun.
“It is with great sadness that we learned of the act of vandalism targeting our parish’s places of prayer,” the office said.
The statement urged believers to meet the attack not with anger, but “through prayer, fasting, and forgiveness”.
