Church of Saint James the Greater (Apostle)

The Church of Saint James the Greater was built as a parish church for a rural Herzegovinian community, consecrated in 1969 after decades of interrupted construction. In 1981, six young parishioners reported visions of the Virgin Mary on a nearby hillside, triggering a pilgrimage phenomenon that has drawn over fifty million visitors. The Vatican spent four decades investigating before issuing nihil obstat for the associated Marian devotion in 2024.

The parish of Medjugorje was established in 1892, carved from the older parish of Žabljak, and placed under the care of Franciscan friars who had served Herzegovina's Catholic communities for centuries. The first church, a simple stone building completed in 1897, deteriorated after World War I, its foundations undermined by unstable ground. In the 1930s, the parish secured a design from Stjepan Podhorsky, a prominent Zagreb architect who provided his services free of charge. Construction began in 1934 but was interrupted by World War II and the poverty of the postwar years. The church was finally completed and consecrated on January 19, 1969.

Twelve years later, on the evening of June 24, 1981, the Feast of John the Baptist, two young women, Mirjana Dragicevic and Ivanka Ivankovic, reported seeing the Virgin Mary on a rocky hillside called Podbrdo near the village. The following day, four more young people joined them: Marija Pavlovic, Jakov Colo, Vicka Ivankovic, and Ivan Dragicevic, bringing the group to six visionaries, aged ten to sixteen.

The Virgin reportedly identified herself as the Kraljica Mira, the Queen of Peace, and stated she had come to call the world back to God. The apparitions moved from the hillside to the church itself, with a small side room near the main altar becoming a regular meeting place for the visionaries and the apparition for approximately three years. Daily apparitions have been reported by some of the visionaries continuously since 1981.

News spread rapidly despite the constraints of communist Yugoslavia. Within weeks, thousands were arriving. Within years, millions. The Franciscan friars who administered the parish found themselves at the center of a global phenomenon, maintaining the sacramental life and prayer program around which the pilgrimage organized itself.