Basilica of the Visitation on Marian Hill – Levoča (Lőcse)
Marian Hill (Mariánska hora) above Levoča (Lőcse) is one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in the Spiš region and in all of Slovakia. Every year several hundred thousand pilgrims come to its basilica, dedicated to the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, for the July pilgrimage.
Marian devotion here goes back to the 13th century: a chapel already stood on the hill in 1247. In 1470 it was rebuilt as a Gothic church, and the Gothic statue of Mary was placed in it. The faithful kept coming even during the Reformation, but the great pilgrimages began after the Catholic revival: the first large procession reached the hill on 2 July 1671, and in 1673 the church received the privilege of granting indulgences with papal permission.
The church was rebuilt several times between the 17th and 19th centuries, and as the number of pilgrims grew, a new and larger church was built in the early 20th century. Its foundation stone was laid in 1903, and it was built between 1906 and 1914 to designs by Anton Müller; Ján Vojtaššák, Bishop of Spiš, consecrated it on 2 July 1922.
The original Gothic statue of Mary, carved in the second half of the 15th century, still stands on the high altar. Pope John Paul II raised the church to the rank of minor basilica on 26 January 1984, and on 3 July 1995 he visited in person: more than 650,000 people attended the papal Mass. The shrine is a shared place of pilgrimage for Catholics of the Latin and Greek rites, and since 2005 it has been a member of the European network of Marian shrines. Even under the communist dictatorship, the faithful came here in large numbers despite the difficulties.
Pilgrimage feast: the main pilgrimage is linked to the feast of the Visitation (2 July); it is held on the first weekend of July, with the main festive Mass on Sunday.
Visiting: the basilica stands just below the summit of Marian Hill, about 2 km north of the centre of Levoča; a marked footpath and a road lead up from the town. Expect traffic restrictions in town during the pilgrimage. The old town of Levoča is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Sources: Wikipedia (Slovak) · Wikipedia (English) · Wikipedia – Levoča · SITA – the pilgrimage
Photo: Karelj / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Photo: Thaler Tamas / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Town:
Levoča (Lőcse)
