The Region
Communist Yugoslavia was located in the Balkan Peninsula of southeastern Europe. The Balkan wars of the 1990’s brought an end to the oppressive Yugoslavian regime, which held an iron fist over its people since the country was created at the end of World War II. Six fledgling democracies arose from the ashes of Yugoslavia: Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Bosnia Herzegovina.
Bosnia Herzegovina is divided into two regions: Bosnia, the larger of the two, in the northern and central parts of the country; and Herzegovina, in the southern and southwestern region. The capital is Sarajevo, site of the 1984 Winter Olympics.
Herzegovina, where Medjugorje is located, is situated between mountains to the north and the Adriatic Sea to the south. The Mediterranean climate of the region guarantees gentle winters and hot summers. While it does occasionally drop below freezing, wintertime is more likely to see rain than snow. The main cultural and administrative center of Herzegovina is Mostar. It is also the largest town in Herzegovina and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese in which Medjugorje is located.
About 3.5 million people call Bosnia Herzegovina home. Approximately 50% are Bosnian Muslims; 30% are Serbian Orthodox; 15% are Croatian Catholics; and the rest are a combination of other ethnicities and religions. While the majority religion in the entire country is Islam, the majority religion in Herzegovina is Roman Catholicism.
In the Croatian language of the locals, the name Medjugorje means between the mountains, because the village is nestled along the base of two connecting mountains, Cross Mountain, the larger of the two, and Apparition Hill, as they are called today. Many wild pomegranate trees grow on the larger mountain and consequently, it was always called Šipovac, which means mountain of pomegranates. When the villagers built a huge concrete cross on the summit in 1933, in honor of the 1900th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they renamed the mountain Križevac, which means mountain of the Cross, or Cross Mountain, as it is now commonly called.
The smaller hill was always called Podbrdo, and the locals still usually call it that. Podbrdo means something like, under the hill or foothill, possibly referring to the fact that it lies in the shadow of the larger, adjacent Cross Mountain. On June 24, 1981, when the Blessed Virgin Mary was first reported to appear in the parish of Medjugorje, that apparition (and many subsequent apparitions) took place on Podbrdo. As a result, the hill came to be known as Apparition Hill.
The parish of Medjugorje is made up of five hamlets; Miletina (at the base of Cross Mountain), Vionica (where Mother’s Village is located), Šurmanci (where the Divine Mercy chapel is located, down the mountain, by the river), Bijakovići (at the base of Apparition Hill) and Medjugorje, where St. James church is located. Because the church is in the hamlet of Medjugorje, the entire village is called Medjugorje.
Approximately 5000 people live in Medjugorje permanently, however, the population regularly swells to tens of thousands due to the year-round influx of pilgrims from around the world. The vast majority of the permanent residents are Croatian Catholics, however, there is also a growing population of foreigners who have made Medjugorje their home.
During the communist years, the only way to have a “successful” life was to join the Communist Party. If you were a member of the Communist Party, you could live a much better, easier life. You could get better jobs and career opportunities, nicer apartments, higher positions of authorities and influence. But the price was high; you had to renounce your faith. You could not be a practicing believer. As a member of the Party, you were not allowed to attend Mass; get married in the church; baptize or confirm your children; or celebrate Christian holidays. For the proud Croatian Catholics of Herzegovina, this was not an option. The vast majority refused to renounce their faith and refused to join the Communist Party. This left them with limited options for work and survival. For most, their only choice was to farm their land. The brownish-red soil of the region is best suited for growing tobacco and grapes, and so generations of the local Herzegovinian families made their living off the land, primarily doing the back-breaking labor of growing and drying tobacco leaves and then selling that to the government of Yugoslavia, with minimal profit.
After pilgrims began descending on this small farming village, the economy quickly shifted from primarily agrarian to primarily service and hospitality oriented. In previous places of apparitions, like Lourdes and Fatima, similar things happened. Pilgrims need a place to sleep, restaurants where they could eat, coffee shops to grab a drink and a snack, souvenir shops to buy things for loved ones back home and so on. Building quickly popped up on the land which had previously been used for farming. Like Lourdes, Fatima and other pilgrimage destinations, Medjugorje became a hub of employment, not just for the locals, but also for people from around the region. As more pilgrims visited the village, the need for basic services to welcome them increased.
This obscure Croatian village, hidden away in the rocky hills and mountains of Herzegovina, with the hard to pronounce name, has welcomed over 50 million pilgrims since 1981 and has quickly became one of the most visited Catholic destinations in the world.
