Marian Devotion Among The Roma in Slovakia A Post Modern Religious Response To Marginality 1St Ed Edition Tatiana Zachar Podolinska Full Chapter PDF
Marian Devotion Among The Roma in Slovakia A Post Modern Religious Response To Marginality 1St Ed Edition Tatiana Zachar Podolinska Full Chapter PDF
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Marian Devotion Among
the Roma in Slovakia
A Post-Modern Religious
Response to Marginality
Marian Devotion
Among the Roma in
Slovakia
A Post-Modern Religious Response to Marginality
Tatiana Zachar Podolinská
Institute of Ethnology and Social Anthropology
Slovak Academy of Sciences
Bratislava, Slovakia
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
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Preface
Post-modern societies are still working with the concept of ascribed collec-
tive identities, classifying people into groups that are supposed to share
certain common characteristics and even predispositions.
The spontaneous classification, based on folk taxonomies and intuitive
folk sociology, serves as a basic roadmap in our daily lives. For us, it is
important to know where we fit the most in order to develop our second-
ary networks in the ‘bubbles’ of safety for sharing joy, fears, and sorrows.
Both individually and collectively constructed ‘bubbles’ serve as reservoirs
of our social and symbolic capital, which we mobilise when seeking sup-
port, active interventions, or protection.
However, during the process of our socialisation, we become familiar
with learned classification that serves as an instrumental tool for both priv-
ileging and peripheralising groups and communities based on race, ethnic-
ity, religion, gender, age, and so forth, the members of which may face
multiple prejudices and stereotypes. Therefore, on the one hand, learned
classification gives us an approach to collective memory and inherited tra-
dition and the culture of both ancestors and living group members. At the
same time, however, it may serve for the shaping of exclusivist political and
discursive ism-ideologies—for example, racism, nationalism, ethnocen-
trism, sexism, and ageism.
This book exemplifies such group peripheralisation through specific
examples of Roma communities in Slovakia, which are marginalised based
on ethnic, social, and religious principles. More precisely, this book
explores how they cope with marginalisation, creating their islands of
v
vi PREFACE
marginal centrality, and the role of the post-modern Virgin Mary in this
internal process of self-centralisation.
The Virgin Mary herself has successfully managed her way ‘from the
periphery to the centre’, becoming a pivotal figure of Catholic and
Orthodox Christianity in the twentieth century. She could even be denoted
as one of the most crucial influencers of the Christian world of the twen-
tieth century, shaping the special branch of theology—Mariology—as well
as ruling papal acts. She has successfully survived mandatory atheism in
communist countries as well as liberalism, de-traditionalisation, and secu-
larisation of Western societies by enchanting the world with her appari-
tions, miracles, and wonders.
The book explores how Marian devotion represents both the continu-
ation of tradition and the restoration of interrupted tradition, fluidly mix-
ing pre-modern and ultra-modern elements of beliefs and practices with
the grassroots stream of post-modern Christianity.
At the same time, the book illuminates how Mary became the voice of
those on the periphery, being the pillar of nation-building processes, fight-
ing for the cultural and ethnic rights of peripheral ethnic groups and
nations. In order to better approach the people She speaks to and for,
Mary became ethnicised (ethnically transcribed) and enculturated (cultur-
ally translated). The book particularly exemplifies the devotion of post-
modern Mary among the Roma in Slovakia, approaching her ethnicised
and enculturated forms (Chocolate Marys), and explores her potential for
helping the Slovak Roma on their own path ‘from the periphery to the
centre’.
The idea to write the book on the post-modern Virgin Mary with a
focus on her potential of becoming a herald of endogenous Romani eman-
cipation in Slovakia was conceived at the end of 2019, on the shore of the
charming fishing village of Crail on the East Neuk coast of Scotland,
washed by the massive, cold waves of the North Sea. I remember the
enthusiastic and enriching discussions with my friend, tutor, and personal
couch, Prof Elena Marushiakova from University of St Andrews, during
our evening walks among the raindrops, inseparably mixed with the salty
ocean aerosol, the soft fragrance of the sand, and the odours of decaying
algae, crabs, and other marine animals. In the course of these discussions,
I had the opportunity to crystallise my deep and fascinating, long-term yet
still dispersed, unencapsulated field experiences. When I later, seemingly
by accident, discovered—hidden around the corner in a nearby wall-
garden of Kellie Castle—an impressive and timeless statue of the Virgin
PREFACE vii
Mary Stella Maris [Lat., ‘Star of the Sea’], the patroness of seamen and
fishermen, for me, it was as if I had suddenly received a compass and final
order to undertake the mission of writing this book.
This book uses multifocal lenses, combining both the macro- and
micro-perspective. For me, as the author, the fluent changing of focus was
both exciting and challenging. And so, in this book, I am offering an
eagle’s-eye view, focused on distant, theoretical horizons, while maintain-
ing the main line of my argument. My approach combines a detailed,
earthly perspective of ethnographic research and pinpoints the intimate
details and private experiences of the lives of particular individuals. In this
regard, I invite the reader to collaborate in the creative reading of this
book in order to (re)interpret and (re)evaluate the offered thoughts and
data, as well as to potentially give them new horizons and perspectives.
I would like to thank the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS) for grant-
ing the SAS-ERC Scholar Visiting Fellowship (September–November
2019) and University of St Andrews for receiving me as a hosting scholar.
I would also like to acknowledge my home institution, the Institute of
Ethnology and Social Anthropology of SAS in Bratislava, for its continu-
ous support and working opportunity. A special thank-you goes to the
VEGA grant agency for funding the ‘Ethnographic Research of Non-
religion and Secularism in Modern Slovak Society–Life Trajectories and
Stories’ (VEGA grant No. 2/0060/19) and the Slovak Literary Fund for
granting the Creative Writing Scholarship that enabled me to finish the
manuscript. I especially thank Prof Tomasz Kamusella from University of
St Andrews for reading and commenting on my proposal, an anonymous
reviewer for a positive recommendation, and, last but not least, the
Editorial Board of Palgrave Macmillan for accepting my proposal. My
thanks also go to the translator and proofreader of the manuscript, Judita
Takáčová, as well as to the native speaker of English, Michael Sabo. For
scientific insight, meticulous reading, and commenting on several versions
of the manuscript, I am particularly thankful to Prof Elena Marushiakova.
I would like to acknowledge my parents Mária and Ladislav, my hus-
band Martin, and my sons Sebastián and Damián, for their love and sup-
port. My greatest thank-you is reserved for Mary and all the people She
accommodates in the centre of her loving heart.
Index 153
ix
List of Figures
Fig. 3.1 Fresco of the Holy Family above the stove in the kitchen.
Rokycany. (Photo: © T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 81
Fig. 3.2 Domestic altar in the living room decorated with plastic flowers.
Svinia (Household 1). (Photo: © T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 82
Fig. 3.3 Holy corner in the living room. Žehňa (Household 2). (Photo:
© T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 83
Fig. 3.4 Holy corner in the living room. Abranovce. (Photo: ©
T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 84
Fig. 3.5 Holy corner in the kitchen with a new-born sleeping under the
protection of the Virgin Mary. Žehňa (Household 2). (Photo:
© T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 85
Fig. 3.6 Various statuettes of Jesus and the Virgin Mary as part of the
living room secretary. Abranovce. (Photo: © T. Zachar
Podolinská, 2006) 86
Fig. 3.7 Holy corner/altar arranged on top of the TV in the kitchen.
Žehňa (Household 2). (Photo: © T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 87
Fig. 3.8 Corner with a TV in the living room, decorated with plastic
flowers in a manner of a holy corner. Rokycany. (Photo: ©
T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 88
Fig. 3.9 Wall fresco with the Virgin Mary and child in the bedroom.
The adjacent corner contains family photos, a TV, and a
tape-recorder with radio. Žehňa (Household 3). (Photo: ©
T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 89
Fig. 3.10 ‘Holy corner’ arranged like an altar, richly decorated with
plastic flowers. The statues of Mary and Jesus were moved out
of composition after the householders’ conversion to the local
xi
xii LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 3.25 Detail of a wall fresco in the kitchen (See Fig. 3.16). The Virgin
Mary is depicted with dark skin and with the face of a Roma-like
woman. Terňa (Photo: © T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 112
Fig. 3.26 Dark-skinned Madonna coloured at home. Svinia (Household
3). (Photo: © T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 113
Fig. 3.27 Dark-skinned Madonna and child. Jarovnice. (Photo: ©
T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 114
Fig. 3.28 Tapestry of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the kitchen. Žehňa
(Household 2). (Photo: © T. Zachar Podolinská, 2006) 115
CHAPTER 1
Abstract In this chapter, we will trace how the Virgin Mary herself has
successfully managed her way ‘from the periphery to the centre’, becom-
ing a pivotal figure of Catholic and Orthodox Christianity in the twentieth
century. We will approach the Marian devotion as representing both the
continuation of tradition, as well as the restoration of interrupted tradi-
tion, fluidly mixing pre-modern and ultra-modern elements of beliefs and
practices with the grassroots stream of post-modern Christianity. We will
seek testimonies of those who believe in her direct interventions in the
world, causing, for example, miraculous healings and other miracles. We
will explore how her messages impact the Church, including the popes
and the highest clergy elite. We will examine the ways people believe in her
potential to share her sacrum with shrines, statues, images, and other
devotional objects. We will discover how Mary became the voice of those
on the periphery, being the pillar of nation-building processes, fighting for
the cultural and ethnic rights of peripheral ethnic groups and nations. We
will illuminate, how She has successfully survived mandatory atheism in
communist countries as well as liberalism, de-traditionalisation and secu-
larisation of Western societies, keeping enchanting the world with her
apparitions, miracles, and wonders.
Although Jesus had only one Mother, and there is only one Virgin Mary,
tracing her mundane faces and varieties of her devotion across the centu-
ries and continents has led us to the conclusion that there are as many
Marys as there are people and nations who are devoted to her. Along with
the spread of Christianity, her role through the ages has become more
central, her presence more visible, and her voice more audible.
With the help of mass-media communication, new forms of transport,
and the ever-growing ease of mobility in the twentieth century, She, as the
Mother of Jesus, has become the leading figure of global missionary activi-
ties, captivating the world with her public and globally addressed messages
(Chapman 2000). Her popularity at the beginning of the twenty-first cen-
tury is sometimes compared to those of pop-culture ‘megastars’ (Hermkens
et al. 2009, p. 1).
From a strictly scientific point of view, the Virgin Mary, being herself a
transcendent entity, cannot be traced. Anyhow, we can trace her based on
her mundane ‘imprints’ in the ‘real world’ and human lives. Thus, we can
talk to people and seek testimonies of those who believe in her direct
interventions in the world, causing, for example, miraculous healings and
other miracles. We can follow statistics of how many people in the world
are on the move because of Mary. We can explore how her messages
impact the Church, including the popes and the highest clergy elite. We
can examine the ways people believe in her potential to share her sacrum
with shrines, statues, images, and other devotional objects. We can explore
how her devotion has changed the symbolic map of the world, giving
importance to the places which were formerly considered nowhere. We
can trace the ways of her enculturation by local people, being venerated as
a European, Indian, African, Asian, or Roma woman, or the intriguing
ability of people to accommodate her in nearly every place, time, condi-
tion, or circumstance. Therefore, tracing the implicit faces of Mary mir-
rored in the mundane world, we also trace the faces of the people who
believe in her as the Divine Mother of Christ and ultimate Love.
Her person is veiled with the mystery of being both the Immaculate (ever)
Virgin and the human Mother of Jesus, who is also the Son of the Celestial
Father (God). The enigma of her being both a Virgin and a Mother has
1 TRACES OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN THE MODERN WORLD 3
Marian Flowers
Originally, flowers and plants were named after ancient pagan deities
(Schroedel and Schroedel 2006). During the fourth century, Saint
Ambrose referred to the Virgin Mary as ‘the rose of modesty’. The
Venerable Bede (673–735 A.D.) wrote of the white lily as the emblem of
the Virgin Mary, symbolising the purity of Mary’s body and the glory of
her soul, as She was assumed into heaven. Later, Saint Bernard
(1090–1154 A.D.) praised the Virgin Mary as ‘delightfully blooming with
the beautiful flowers of every virtue, among which three are exquisite:
primarily, the violet of humility, the lily of chastity, and the rose of charity’
(Mellon 2008).
In the Medieval era, hundreds of flowers were named after the Virgin
Mary. Among these, some of the most important were the rose [Lat., Rosa
canina] as the emblem of Mary’s love of God; the white lily [Lat., Lilium
candidum; ‘Madonna lily’], symbolising her purity; the myrtle [Lat.,
Myrtus communis], her virginity; and the marigold [Lat., Calendula offici-
nalis], her heavenly glory (Herbs and Flowers…, n.d.).
Roses and lilies both played a prominent part in apocryphal medieval
literature about the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. ‘The Assumption
lily’, also called the ‘August lily’, blooms during August and is therefore
associated with Assumption Day on August 15, the most prominent feast
of the Blessed Mary celebrated today.
In the Medieval era, little gardens devoted solely to the cultivation of
the plants associated with Mary were created, which are called Saint Mary’s
Gardens, or Mary Gardens. Even today, there are blogs and websites for
1 TRACES OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN THE MODERN WORLD 5
then to the Holy Mother, and icons of her were painted under the title
‘The Life-Giving Spring’.
This epithet originated with her revelation of a sacred spring [Gr., hagi-
asma; Tr., ayazma] in Valoukli, Constantinople (present-day Istanbul in
Turkey). The Byzantine Emperor Leo I (457–474 A.D.) built a church
over this site, which witnessed numerous miraculous healings over the
centuries, becoming one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Greek
Orthodoxy. The fountain of holy water is now situated in the complex of
the Church of Saint Mary of the Spring (Albera and Couroucli 2012,
pp. 97–99).
In Istanbul, there is also the Church of Saint Mary of Blachernae. In
450 A.D., Empress Aelia Pulcheria began to build a church near a foun-
tain of holy water. Emperor Leo I erected a holy reliquary near the church,
since it hosted the holy mantle and robe of the Virgin, as well as a sacred
bath edifice, which enclosed the fountain (Albera and Couroucli 2012,
pp. 97–99).
The belief in healing springs connected with the power of the Virgin
Mary is deeply rooted in the Eastern Orthodox religious culture. For
example, many places with mineral baths are connected with the Bogoroditsa
[Bg., ‘The Bearer of God’] and called Bogorodichna stapka [Bg., ‘Virgin
Mary’s step’] (e.g. Stara Zagora, Haskovo, and others). In Stara Zagora,
the place consists of a rock formation resembling a female footprint that,
according to legend, belongs to the Virgin Mary herself (The mineral
baths…, n.d.). Another famous healing spring connected with the Virgin
Mary in Bulgaria is near the Church of the Annunciation of Mary in the
Asenovgrad region. Next to the church with the popular name Ribnata
[Bg., ‘The Fish Church’], there is a chapel reputed for its holy spring [Bg.,
ayazmo]. It is believed that seeing fish in the spring is a sign that the prayer
will be heard (Baeva and Georgieva 2019, pp. 263–264).
Near Asenovgrad, in the realm of Bachkovo Monastery, there is another,
which is perhaps the most famous spring near the Chapel of the Protecting
Veil of Mary. Devotees drink from the spring, wash their faces, hands, or
ailing parts of the body. It is believed that taking a bath in the basin at
midnight for three nights running is to have an even stronger healing
impact. For this reason, there is a small building near the chapel, where
pilgrims can stay for the night (Baeva and Georgieva 2019, p. 259); how-
ever, in order to receive a healing effect, it is enough to sleep anywhere
near ayazmo.
8 T. ZACHAR PODOLINSKÁ
Astral Symbolism
The Virgin Mary has been traditionally connected with objects in the sky,
such as the Sun, the Moon, stars, planets, and constellations, which are all
expressed in traditional Marian vocabulary and iconography.
There are no doubts that early Christianity was nurtured by the
Hellenistic world. Thus, the early Virgin Mary absorbed the attributes and
functions of prominent Hellenistic sky goddesses. Lunar symbolism often
accompanies Hellenistic Mother Goddesses, such as Isis, Artemis, and
Selene. Another classical sky goddess implemented into the imagery of the
Virgin Mary was Diana, who was responsible for women’s fertility and
eased their pain during childbirth.
In Chapter 12 of the Biblical Book of Revelation, Saint John describes
in his famous apocalyptic prophecy a mysterious woman: ‘a woman clothed
with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head, a crown
of twelve stars (12:1)’. The woman from his prophecy is called the Woman
of Revelation or the Woman of the Apocalypse.
First, the feminine person described in John’s Revelation was identified
with the Church. Only afterwards, the woman was interpreted as the
Virgin Mary, and the sun was identified as Christ. The Virgin thereby
acquired the lunar imagery previously applied to the Church (Warner
1983, pp. 257–258).
As a lunar deity, Mary was also closely associated with water, particu-
larly the sea. The moon moves the waters of the world—the sea—in its
rhythm (Warner 1983, p. 262). The same is true for the liquids of the
human body, particularly the blood. Thus, with regard to the menstrua-
tion cycle, women are directly connected with the cycle of the moon.
Ave Maris Stella [Lat., ‘Hail, Star of the Sea’] is a Marian hymn that has
been used at Vespers since approximately the eight century. The title, Stella
Maris, is one of the oldest and most widespread titles applied to Mary. She
thus appears to be identified with the prominent ocean’s guide—the Pole
Star (Warner 1983, p. 262). In iconography, Mary, as Stella Maris, was
depicted as standing on a boat with a rising star over her head. Stella Maris
was first prayed to by travellers and sailors for a safe return home. It has,
however, deeper symbolism, since Mary makes our entire life’s journey
safe and guides us towards our final destination—salvation.
Mary has also been identified as the Stella Matutina—the last star in
the morning and the first star in the evening—the planet Venus,
10 T. ZACHAR PODOLINSKÁ
connected with the ancient goddess of love (Lat., Venus; Gr., Aphrodite).
Finally, Mary has also been associated with the Virgo constellation (Warner,
1983, pp. 263–264).
The vision of the Virgin by Saint Catherine Labouré in Paris 1830
strengthened the identification of Mary with the moon. The Virgin
appeared to her in a white silken rustling dress, swathed in a white veil
with dazzling rays flashing from her extended hands. Her feet were crush-
ing the head of a serpent as it rested on a blue globe (Warner 1983,
p. 259).
When exploring the recent Marian apparitions worldwide, a number of
them are connected with the sky symbolism or so-called sun-miracles.
A. Meessen explored several of them and compiled a list of the most popu-
lar: the apparition in Tilly-sur-Seulles (France, 1901), Fatima (Portugal,
1917), Onkerzeele (Belgium, 1933), Bonate (Italy, 1944), Espis (France,
1946), Acquaviva Platani (Italy, 1950), Heroldsbach (Germany, 1949),
Fehrbach (Germany, 1950), Kerezinen (France, 1953), San Damiano
(Italy, 1965), Tre Fontane (Italy, 1982), and Kibeho (Rwanda, 1983)
(from Meessen 2005, p. 200). Sun-miracles have been reported at other
Marian sites, too—in Betania (Venezuela, 1976–1990), Lubbock (Texas,
1989), at the Mother Cabrini Shrine near Denver (Colorado, 1992),
Conyers (Georgia, early 1990s), in Medjugorje (Bosnia and Herzegovina,
1980s), Seuca (Romania, 2008; Peti 2019), in Litmanová (Slovakia,
1990–1995), and so forth.
Probably the most famous is the sun-miracle of Fatima (October 13,
1917). An estimated 70,000 people attended the site, anticipating the
Virgin’s final visit. As previously described, the figure appeared and identi-
fied herself as the Lady of the Rosary, but only to children. Nevertheless,
the gatherings witnessed unusual celestial signs, such as a silver disc that
emerged from behind the clouds, the sun began to spin and revolve ‘ver-
tiginously on its axis’, and then zig-zag towards the earth as if it had
become unfixed from the heavens. The entire event took about ten min-
utes, and this ‘Miracle of the Sun’, as it later became known, is one of the
best-known events at Fatima. The event was officially accepted by the
Roman Catholic Church as a miracle on October 13, 1930 (The
Anniversary…, 2018).
1 TRACES OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN THE MODERN WORLD 11
in the Church began to weep for the second time in two years, in the pres-
ence of numerous witnesses. Another weeping Icon of The Virgin Mary
and the Child Christ is located in Ramallah, West Bank. The shedding of
tears of oil began in 1998, and the oil was collected over the years to heal
many people.
In the United States, thanks to the spread of Orthodoxy, the phenom-
ena of weeping icons became more and more common—the tear-weeping
and myrrh-flowing icon The Guiding Mother of God (1986) in Chicago;
the myrrh-weeping icon of Our Lady of New Sarov (1985) in Texas; six
weeping icons in Tampa Bay (1989); the weeping icon of the Miraculous
Lady of Cicero (1994), a weeping icon of Our Lady in Conyers (1990–1998)
in Georgia, and an oil-seeping icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Troy
(1997) can be listed. There is also a weeping painting of Our Lady of
Kenner (1995). The print copy of the wonder-working Hawaiian Iveron
Icon of the Mother of God began to stream myrrh in Tullytown (2011,
Pennsylvania). Recently, in 2019, a tear-weeping icon of the Virgin Mary
appeared in the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Chicago.
Miraculous phenomena of weeping icons are reported worldwide, just
to mention the oil weeping icon of Our Lady of Soufanieh (Damascus,
Syria, 1982) or the oil weeping icon of Panagia-Theotokos-Paranythia
(Monastery of Eliakon, near Kykkos, Cyprus, 1997).
To add to the context, holy images of the Mother of God—besides
healing miracles and miraculous weeping, tearing, and bleeding—also
cause other kinds of miracles. They are considered protection for cities
besieged by enemies—examples include the Blessed Mother Tirnaviensis,
whose merciful painting that wept blood in 1663 protected the City of
Trnava in Slovakia against Turkish plundering (Radváni and Kubinec
2012); or the Image of Madonna displayed in the Austrian village of
Mariazell to commemorate the miraculous war-victory of Luis I over the
Turks in 1365 (Letz 2014, p. 22). Out of numerous wonder-working
icons from the Orthodox world, the icon of Our Lady of Kazan, which
was revealed in 1579, should be mentioned. The holy icon achieved rec-
ognition as the Holy Protectress of Russia, credited for protecting Russia
against the Polish (1612), the Swedish (1709), and against Napoleon’s
(1812) invasions. The Russian military commanders D. Pozharsky (seven-
teenth century), Peter I (eighteenth century), M. Kutuzov (nineteenth
century), and marshal G. K. Zhukov (twentieth century) are said to have
credited the invocation of the Virgin Mary through the Kazan icon, which
14 T. ZACHAR PODOLINSKÁ
the apparition, who spoke to the peasant Juan Diego in his native Nahuatl
language, identified herself as: ‘I am the ever Virgin Mary, Mother of the
True God’. At that time, the seer, Juan Diego, was having a tough time
negotiating and accommodating the vision into both the Colonial Hispanic
Christian and native Aztec contexts (Mong 2018). As a consequence, in
1531, nine million indigenous Aztecs converted to Christianity and
embraced Catholicism, invoking Mary as the Tonantzin Virgin of
Guadalupe (Horsfall 2000).
By appearing to an indigenous countryman as one of his own people,
Mary clearly asserted that She stands with those who are on the margins
of society. This vision took on a prophetic quality for those who had been
marginalised and oppressed under the Spanish occupation in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries. To this day, Mexicans devote Our Lady of
Guadalupe as a mysterious communion of both Spaniards and indigenous
populations. La Morenita [Sp., ‘Dark-Skinned Woman’] thus represents
all shades of brown, visually promoting the very essence of the Mexican
nation, consisting of many ethnic groups and communities. Being a multi-
cultural symbol and the ‘Mother of All Nations’, the Virgin of Guadalupe
is considered at the same time to be the one who ‘comforts those on the
margins of society even as she equips them for action’ (Our lady, drowned
in the river…, 2019).
The millennial Pope, John Paul II, declared Our Lady of Guadalupe as
the ‘Patroness of the Americas’ in 2012. She is believed by many to be the
ideal intercessor for an increasingly ‘global community of believers who
heed the call to create more just systems and societies that include the
voices of all’ (The Virgin for our times…, 2012).
However, even though there are many ethnicised and enculturated ver-
sions of the Virgin Mary that have been appropriated by marginalised
people and communities in order to achieve visibility and gain voice, there
is also a strong tendency among mainstream societies to treat those Marys
similarly to the people they represent—that is, to expropriate and silence
them. The case of Our Lady of the Amazon can be mentioned as one very
recent example. At the beginning of October 2019, on the occasion of the
Synod of Bishops for the Amazon in Rome, a wooden statue of a kneeling
pregnant indigenous woman who was said to represent Our Lady of the
Amazon, was presented to Pope Francis during a tree-planting ceremony
in the Vatican Gardens. Almost immediately, outrage and consternation
over the possibility of identifying this statue as Mary erupted in Catholic
circles (Our lady, drowned in the river…, 2019), insisting that the statue is
16 T. ZACHAR PODOLINSKÁ
Modern Mary
The Virgin Mary is perfectly accommodated in the modern era. The mod-
ern Virgin Mary—enjoying a glossing glance of modernity—continues to
be traditional, preserving and further evolving her pre-modern associa-
tions with celestial objects, healing flowers, and miraculous springs. Her
statutes and images continue weeping and bleeding. She continues to
appear to local people, causing miraculous healings and sun-miracles. As
such, She is perceived to be a vivid ‘fountain’ of miracles in modern and
secular societies as well, offering her help and solution in cases where
modern medicine and science have failed.
Since the latter half of the nineteenth century, apparitions of the Virgin
Mary have proliferated at an unprecedented rate, as if the world urgently
needed Mary’s voice and assistance. In the first half of the twentieth cen-
tury, the world was devastated by two world wars and the world economic
crisis, and disbalanced by the mass spread of Communist ideas. In the lat-
ter half of the century, the world was deeply impacted by the Cold War
and the crash of old colonial empires, both connected with the change in
the global distribution of symbolic power, reconfiguration of the eco-
nomic market, and a national fight for human rights and democracy. The
fight for symbolic and economic dominance between Communism and
capitalism caused the ‘East’–‘West’ division of the world and the subse-
quent race in nuclear armament.
The beginning of the twenty-first century was affected by globalisation
and the influx of new technologies that enormously speeded up the previ-
ous forms of mobility and communication. With the new, post-modern
era, new global challenges appeared—ethnic and religious conflicts, ter-
rorism, world climate catastrophes, and the refugees-crisis—resulting in
the new ‘South’–‘North’ symbolic world divide. The ultra-modern societ-
ies we live in are characterised by growing inequalities and a global share
of fear—as such, they are sometimes called risk societies (Beck 1992).
The modern Virgin Mary flexibly responds to these new challenges. In
the modern era, She adopted the active role of a global Peace-Maker. As
such, She appears directly in the middle of turbulent times, in the era of
war and conflict (Blackbourn 1994), coming with an unbeatable offer of
divine protection and the ultimate calming hug of the All-Mother.
She speaks in the tongues of people She addresses and appears to be
perfectly informed and familiar with the current geopolitical situation.
Her modern era predictions aim to prevent global and local catastrophes
18 T. ZACHAR PODOLINSKÁ
Marian Century
The twentieth century is also called the ‘Marian century’. Out of approxi-
mately 918 apparitions documented since 41 A.D. (Hierzenberger and
Nedomansky 1993, p. 553), as many as 210 apparitions were reported
between 1928 and 1971 (Scheer 2006). According to O’Sullivan, Western
1 TRACES OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN THE MODERN WORLD 19
fiftieth anniversary of the first space flight with a human crew (Yubileynaya
kosmicheskaya ekspeditsiya…, 2011).
Modern Marian apparitions were documented in Israel, Syria, Russia,
China, India, Vietnam (Our Lady of La Vang; Ninh 2017), the Philippines,
Australia, Madagascar, Japan (Our Lady of Akita, 1973), and Africa (Our
Lady of Zeitoun in Cairo, Coptic Orthodox Church, and Mother of the
Word, Kibeho, Rwanda). There are apparitions in Ecuador (Our Lady of
the Good Event, Quito, 1594), Nicaragua (Our Lady of Cuapa, 1980),
Venezuela (Our Lady of Los Tepes, 1984), Srí Lanka (Our Lady of Lanka,
Ragama), and in many other countries. The United States leads the rest of
the world in the number of apparitions, although most of them are unrec-
ognised to date (e.g. Rainbow Madonna at the Seminole Finance
Corporation of Clearwater, 1996, Florida). (For a more detailed global
map of Marian apparitions distribution, see 500 Years of Virgin Mary
Sightings in One Map, n.d.)
The Virgin Mary is worshipped as the Patroness of Hungary, Poland,
Slovakia, Austria, France, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, and other
European countries. On a regional level, She is considered the Patroness
of Bavaria, Upper Swabia and a large number of Italian regions as well.
Along with the global spread of Catholicism, the Virgin Mary has also
become the patroness of non-European countries—the United States,
Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, and many countries of the American
continent. On the African continent, She is venerated by Catholics in
Zimbabwe, Zaire, Angola, and South Africa. She is the Patroness of
Palestine, India, and South Korea. She is considered the Patroness of
Australia and New Zealand as well (Letz 2014, p. 7).
Likewise, Our Lady of Guadalupe became not only the Patroness of
Mexico but also the Empress of the Americas, from Chile to Canada. She
thus reigns over two continents (Hall 2004). Following the conversion of
many indigenous nations, Mary became not only a symbol of socio-
religious occupation but also a Pan-American symbol enabling social
mobility (Fawrot Peterson 1991). It can also be stated that Our Lady of
Guadalupe touches the European continent as well since her veneration
began a common issue also in Europe. For instance, in Slovakia, a modern
sculpture of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Don Juan can be found in the
garden of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross Church in Petržalka (Bratislava).
Through the transnational use of Marian images, sculptures, and other
devotional objects, people have become interconnected. In this way, She
is ‘on the move’ and touches devotees not only at the original places of
1 TRACES OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN THE MODERN WORLD 21
Portugal has not only been included in the governmental budget for tour-
ism, but also promoted as one of the country’s ten products in the National
Strategic Plan for Tourism. The Strategic Plan of capitalising Fatima now
focuses on tourists from Eastern Europe, Canada, the United States,
Brazil, and Argentina.
In Russia today, we face the phenomena of so-called palomnichestvo
[Rus., ‘peregrination’, or ‘spiritual travelling’], which could be translated
as ‘religious tourism’. Churches and church associations organise spiritual
tours for believers around holy places both within Russia and abroad in
order to see churches, monasteries, and other famous holy places. Within
Russia, the famous wonder-working icons of the Mother of God are
among the major attractions to see (Palomnicheskiye poyezdki, 2020).
In post-communist, Orthodox countries, the icons ‘themselves travel’
in order to reach their devotees. In this respect, visits of icons are organ-
ised, with mass attendance of believers—to mention a couple among many
others: the visit of the wonder-working icon of Presveta Bogoroditsa [Bg.,
‘The Most Holy Mother of God’] from Mount Athos, which was dis-
played in the cathedral in Sofia in 2012 (Chudotvorna ikona…, 2012), or,
in 2016, the visit of the wonder-working icon of Our Lady of Kazan in
Astana, Kazakhstan (Kazanskaya chudotvornaya ikona…, 2016), and so on.
‘The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; vari-
ous nations will be annihilated’—if Russia is not consecrated to the
Immaculate Heart of Mary (13-VII-1917; Congregation for the
Doctrine…, n.d.).
The text of the final, third part of Fatima’s secret—as it was finally
released on June 26, 2000—is essentially depressive and apocalyptic:
‘…the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling
with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of
the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on
his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who
fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after
another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various
lay people of different ranks and positions’ (Congregation for the
Doctrine…, n.d.).
1 TRACES OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN THE MODERN WORLD 25
‘The successive events of 1989 led, both in the Soviet Union and in a num-
ber of countries of Eastern Europe, to the fall of the communist regimes
which promoted atheism. For this, too, His Holiness offers heartfelt thanks
to the Most Holy Virgin. In other parts of the world, however, attacks
against the Church and against Christians, with the burden of suffering they
bring, tragically continue. Even if the events to which the third part of the
‘secret’ of Fatima refers to now seem part of the past, Our Lady’s call to
conversion and penance, issued at the start of the twentieth century, remains
timely and urgent today’ (Congregation for the Doctrine…, n.d).
‘In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will con-
secrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will
be granted to the world’ (Congregation for the Doctrine, n.d.).
messages. On May 12, 2019, a papal spokesman stated that Pope Francis
had given the green light to Catholics to organise pilgrimages to
̵
Medjugorje [Bosn., Medugorje, ‘In Between the Mountains’]—a modern
and popular European place of alleged Marian apparitions in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Within the area of the Crnica Hill known as Podbrdo, six
local children saw a beautiful young woman with a little child in her arms.
For many years now, these six witnesses have testified firmly under oath
that since June 24, 1981, the Blessed Virgin Mary—or the Gospa, as She
is affectionately known here—has been appearing to them every day up to
the present (Zimdars-Schwarz 1991). The Church has not yet given its
verdict on the apparition’s authenticity. Even though the Pope’s authori-
sation of pilgrimages to the site was not to be understood as an ‘authenti-
cation’ of the alleged apparitions, this papal statement would definitively
increase the popularity of the new star rising in the sky of places of Marian
pilgrimages in Europe in the twenty-first century—Medjugorje.
not only observe a ‘return of the sacred’, but even ‘de-secularisation’, that
is, a decrease in the secular aspects of modern culture (Bell 1977;
Berger 1999).
Some comment on Marian devotion as being anti-modern or resistant
to modernity (Hermkens et al. 2009, p. 2). Others think about Marian
devotion in terms of alternative modernity (Orsi 2009), resulting in not
only the sacralisation of Europe but also the modernisation of the Catholic
Church. They argue that after the Second Vatican Council, Marian appari-
tions and piety challenged the modernisation of the Church and autho-
rised the resistance of Catholics who objected to the changes (Orsi 2009,
p. 217).
As mentioned by H. Knoblauch (Knoblauch and Petschke 2019), post-
modern religion is not just ‘returning’; however, it is undergoing a funda-
mental transformation, and only those forms of religion are booming that
have undergone such a transformation. Post-modern Marian devotion
(including pilgrimages and apparitions) is definitively not a static remnant
of earlier periods (Christian 1984). It is rather a brilliant example of post-
modern religiosity, exhibiting the essential features of both spirituality and
popular religion (Knoblauch and Petschke 2019), being a source of bot-
tom-up Christianity, as opposed to ‘normative religion’ represented by the
official Catholic Church.
D. Blackbourn (1994) convincingly ties modern Marian devotion and
visions to popular fears, not just of war and scarcity, but also of a tangible
loss of traditional systems of social organisation, particularly the authority
of the Church. Blackbourn supports his position by calling on examples of
Marian apparitions in Lourdes, Pontmain, La Salette, and Tuscany, as well
as other locations that experienced similar threats to tradition.
The same seems to be true for the post-modern Mary, who is firmly
accommodated into this world, and opens up almost unlimited technical
possibilities of the modern world that She admirably quickly learnt to
employ and benefit from. However, at the same time, She remains equally
admirably resistant and unchanged, representing the stability and continu-
ity of local and national traditions in an unstable, fluid, and risky post-
modern world.
From a certain point of view, Mary profited from the failure of the
Catholic Church to subdue popular religious movements and make room
for new forms of religiosity and spirituality. The same concerns the inabil-
ity of European nation-states to repress both non-traditional religious
movements and popular forms of religiosity connected with the overall
1 TRACES OF THE VIRGIN MARY IN THE MODERN WORLD 29
Post-communist Mary
The so-called Cold War (1946–1991) was a period of tensions between
the Soviet Union with its satellite states (the Eastern Bloc) and the United
States with its allies (the Western Bloc) after WW II. Thus, the political
negotiations connected with the end of WW II implicitly caused the
division of Europe into the ‘East’ and ‘West’ and accelerated the spread of
Communism in the Eastern, Central, and Southern parts of Europe.
The fall of Communism within the communist bloc in the 1990s
affected not only ‘socialist countries’, but Europe as a whole, especially
their neighbours, who had to deal with a sudden influx of economic and
‘religious’ tourists and later, after the opening of the borders, of migrants
and mobile workers from former post-communist countries. All of Europe
faced a broader and deeper transformation caused by the process of
European unification. The enlarged, modern Europe now connected
countries with completely divergent track-records in terms of economic
power, national histories, cultures, religious traditions, and systems of val-
ues. The newly constituted Europe provided fertile ground not only for
tensions between liberalism and conservatism but also faced growing
nationalism.
Both nationalism and conservatism found shelter in the frame of the
Catholic and Orthodox Churches, which are considered to be guardians
of traditional values. Both churches undoubtedly nourished the fall of
Communism and contributed to the reconfiguration of the symbolic map
30 T. ZACHAR PODOLINSKÁ
of the post-communist world. The Virgin Mary and Marian devotion also
profited from the general religious revival. In the 1990s, there was a boom
in the revitalisation of older sites of cult accompanied by new places of
apparitions which began attracting modern pilgrims.
Post-communist Marys
It is perhaps due to the interrupted tradition in post-communist Europe
or the lack of officially approved Marian apparitions in the region (of
Lourdes or Fatima type), or the overly complicated and intricate situation
in the region undergoing a profound multi-spectral transformation that
there is a gap in systematic scholar knowledge on Marian devotion in this
particular region.
A general volume documenting and presenting the national trajectories
of contemporary Marian devotion in selected post-communist countries
has recently been produced (Zachar Podolinská 2019a).
In the background of particular stories, national stories are told as part
of the general history of the entire post-communist region’s transforma-
tion, which focus on Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany,
Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria.
In summary, the following general patterns were collected as being
characteristic of the studied countries of the post-communist region: (a)
the large-scale religious revival as a direct response to the former period of
forced atheisation, (b) the return to the reinvented tradition as a religious
response to westernisation, globalisation, and the liberal values system, (c)
the post-modern response to secularisation and modernisation, feeding
the hunger for spirituality and authentic religiosity of both elites as folk
masses, and (d) the search of the role of the Virgin Mary in reformulating
the national and ethnically-rooted formulas in the process of reconstruc-
tion of national states in the post-communist region (Zachar Podolinská
2019b, p. 37).
The release of mobility and reconciliation of the position of the tradi-
tional Church as well as the general revitalisation of religion also caused
great revitalisation of the Marian devotion in the post-communist region.
Religious tourism to Western European countries significantly nourished
old Marian places of pilgrimage and traditional popular Marian religiosity.
34 T. ZACHAR PODOLINSKÁ
References
500 Years of Virgin Mary Sightings in One Map (n.d.) https://www.nationalgeo-
graphic.com/news/2015/11/151113-virgin-mary-sightings-map/. Accessed
23 Feb 2020.
A Rebirth for Lourdes, France, Driven Somewhat by the Saintly Life of Bernadette—
Los Angeles Times (n.d.). https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-
france-lourdes-bernadette-musical-20190711-story.html. Accessed 26 Feb
2020.
Agadjanian, A. (2006). The Search for Privacy and the Return of a Grand Narrative:
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