Ilača apparitions

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]

Lady of Ilača Gospa ilačka
Location	Ilača,  Croatia
Type	Marian apparition
Approval	1865

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Lady of Ilača

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]