History of Sveta Gora

Pilgrimage Site

The beginnings of the pilgrimage site are described in the Latin inscription on the pedestal of the statue of Madonna with the Child in the Apparition Chapel: »Thus in the year 1529 Virgin Mary appeared to Ursula Ferligoj on the mountain Skalnica, which is now called the Holy Mountain, and instructed her: Tell the people that they should build a house for me and pray for grace.« Ursula was imprisoned several times by the secular authorities in the castle of Solkan, yet she was always miraculously rescued from prison.




Pilgrims started to flock to the mountain Skalnica where they built a wooden chapel and prayed before a statue of Our Lady, which was made according to the description of the seer by the brothers Francesco and Pietro Floreani from Udine. Nothing is known about the fate of this statue, the present one was made upon the model of the original one in the 17th century.

The unstoppable devotion of the pilgrims moved the authorities, who in 1540 by the deputy head of the government of Gorica, Hieronymus Attems, gave permission to build a church on the Skalnica. When they were digging for foundations, they found a slab of stone, into which ornaments and the prayer Ave Maria had been carved. In the State Archives in Vienna there can be found documents about the existence of a small church in the 14th century, which was probably destroyed by Turks in 1470.






Stoneslab with carved ornaments and the prayer Ave Maria


»Ave, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus« (Lk 1.28). In the slab 120 circles or medallions are carved in ten rows of twelve. On the border of the circles the inscription is carved and other areas show various Marian symbols (the garlands denote Virgin Mary as the Queen and the Lady of all creatures in Heaven and on Earth, the doves represent peace distributed by Virgin Mary and the stars mean that Virgin Mary is a bright guiding star on the dangerous sea of life). According to another explanation the stone slab is supposed to have served the pilgrims to form themselves souvenirs made of breadcrumb, which they took home as spiritual gifts. More probable is the explanation that the slab is a part of the equipment of a foundry next to the 14th century shrine, where pilgrims’ souvenirs were cast. The greatest part of the slab has been lost.

Our Lady of Sveta Gora

The pilgrim first looks at the Madonna and she directs his look to Jesus, who is the centre of the picture and also of every Christian’s life. On Madonna’s left  stands John the Baptist, who points his finger to Jesus and whose pilgrim’s staff bears the inscription: »Behold, the Lamb of God.« To the right of Madonna stands the prophet Isaiah. In his hand he holds his book with the prophecies about Messiah and his Virgin Mother. Behind the Madonna a carpet is spread out, which is typical of Venetian Renaissance painting.

Our Lady of Sveta Gora

The new church in Gothic/Renaissance style was consecrated by the vicar general Egidius Falcetta and in 1544 the Patriarch of Aquileia Marino Grimani presented it with a picture of Our Lady that had been painted by the Venetian painter Jacopo Palma the Elder (with his real name Jacopo Negretti), which replaced the earlier statue.

In 1565 the Austrian Archduke Charles entrusted the pilgrimage site to the Franciscans who had fled from Bosnia to escape Turks. The flourishing pilgrimage site was dissolved in 1786 by the reformist emperor Joseph II, the church and the monastery were put up for auction and the Franciscans moved to Gorizia. However, the picture of Our Lady of Sveta Gora had received a golden crown1 from the Vatican chapter in 1717, which may have induced Emperor Francis II to remedy the injustice and to decide in 1793 that the picture of the Madonna, which was staying as a »refugee« at Solkan, should be returned to Sveta Gora. People found hope of better times, they rebuilt the church by means of donations and above the main entry they inscribed the will of Virgin Mary, which was also theirs: Ego autem steti in Monte sicut prius (I stay on the Mountain as before.)

Diocesan priests looked after the shrine until 1901 when the Franciscans returned. They buried the Cardinal Jacob Missia, who died in 1902, in the Franciscan crypt and on the anniversary of his death he was moved to a new crypt in St. Michael’s chapel.2 The pilgrimage site became more and more famous and in 1907 Pope Pius X conferred the title of basilica upon the church.
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1 A gold crown was presented to those pictures of Virgin Mary that had been revered for a long time and were regarded as endowed with miraculous powers.The first picture to be crowned outside Italy was the one of Trsat, the second one was Our Lady of Sveta Gora and the third one was Our Lady of Czenstochowa.
2 A portrait of the Cardinal Jacob Missia, which was painted by the Impressionist painter Ivan Grohar, can be found in the Apparition Chapel.



 First World War

The promising times were followed by the turmoil of the First World War, which turned Sveta Gora into a heap of rubble and put the Madonna picture and the Franciscans again to flight, this time to Ljubljana. After the war, the Bishop of Gorica took care of reconstruction: the pilgrims’ house with a temporary chapel and a residence for the Franciscan brothers were built to the designs of the architect Max Fabiani. In 1922 the »refugee« picture of Our Lady returned to Sveta Gora.

According to the Treaty of Rapallo the region fell to Italy and, upon an intervention of the Vatican, Italian Franciscans from Trento came to Sveta Gora. In the years from 1924 to 1928 they built the monastery and a new church upon the model of the Basilica of Aquileia to the designs of the architect Silvano Barich. The Archbishop of Udine Giuseppe Nogara consecrated the church in 1932.


Second World War

A short period of peace was followed by the apo-calypse of the Second World War. Out of concern for its safety, the picture of Our Lady was first taken to Kostanjevica in 1943 and later to Gorica (Gorizia). One night in 1947 it was »stolen« from there in fear of communists. In 1949 it was rediscovered in Vatican (Fr. Gracijan Heric OFM) and returned to the Slovenian Franciscans (Fr. Hugo Bren OFM). Since the picture was severely damaged, it was transferred from wood to canvas and finally brought back to Sveta Gora in 1951.

By God’s intervention Sveta Gora escaped a further destruction during the Second World War. In May 1944 the pilgrimage site was occupied by the Germans, who turned the church into a fortress against partisans. On 29 April 1945 the partisans intended to bomb the church from airplanes, yet clouds miraculously covered it and thus it was spared.

Peace

After the peace agreement Catholics were often harassed and the authorities tried to make pilgrimages impossible. Yet the faithful have always found ways to visit Our Lady of Sveta Gora, who stands on the mountain as before and intercedes for her faithful pilgrims with God. In spite of its turbulent history, Sveta Gora is not a dead monument but a pilgrimage site of increasing popularity, where God grants graces through intercession of his Mother and where man can straighten out his entangled life.






The side altars on the left are dedicated to St. Francis and St. Joseph. Then follow the chapel and the altar of Archangel Michael painted by the painter Rudi Pergar.
(Archangel Michael is indicative of the hills where Christians replaced the worship of pagan gods by the worship of the One and Only God. It can be deduced therefrom that Sveta Gora was a place of worship already in prehistoric times.)

The side altars on the right are dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua and to the Sacred Heart.

The Apparition Chapel behind the main altar was renovated in the Jubilee Year 2000 to the designs of the architect Danilo Fürst, the last pupil of Jože Plečnik.

In the crypt behind the main altar the last Archbishop of Gorizia of Slovenian origin, Frančišek Borgia Sedej, and the Apostolic Administrator Mihael Toroš are buried. The bust of Archbishop Sedej was made by the sculptor Evgen Guštin.

The Way of the Cross has been brought from the destroyed Franciscan church at Brežice.

The ex-votos are presents of pilgrims in thanksgiving for favours received through the intercession of Our Lady of Sveta Gora.


Surroundings

The Candle Chapel was built in 1998 to the designs of the architect Jelko Valenčak; the mosaic The Visit of the Magi was made by the painter Marta Jakopič Kunaver.

Concordia et pax is a memorial to all victims of the Second World War.



The Bell Tower is 50 m high and contains four large bells (the biggest weighs 4335 kg) and five small ones striking the hours.

The monastery houses a Marian Museum (ex-votos, remains of the destroyed basilica, devotional pictures, photographs, documents), a Library (after the dissolution of the pilgrimage site, the books were moved to the Franciscan monastery in Gorica in 1786 and to the Franciscan residence at Kostanjevica near Gorica in 1811) and the Noviciate House.

The Pilgrims’ House was nationalized in 1948 and returned in 1989; it is going to house a family centre, a residence of nuns and a retreat house.












The Restaurant with its 400-year tradition and is renowned for its excellent cuisine. In 1672 the Emperor Leopold I conferred upon the monastery the right to choose, appoint and dismiss the publicans, who had to live at Sveta Gora in order to be always at the pilgrims’ disposal. Also nowadays any pilgrim, after having received spiritual nourishment in church, can get a meal in the restaurant daily.

Attached to the restaurant is also the Museum of the Front of Isonzo with a permanent exhibition (since 1989) dedicated to all who died there.

Since 2002 Tau has been a spiritual and educational centre led by the Minor Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi.

Pilgrims’ chapels were destroyed during the First World War. The newly built chapel of the Three Magi was painted by the painter Rudi Pergar in 1996.