The Shrine of Our Lady of Tears

It all started in 1953 when a plaster molding of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was crying for full four days above the marital bed of the Iannuso family in Siracusa. After the scientific analysis had confirmed that those were human tears, the medical committee confirmed more than 300 scientifically inexplicable recoveries in only two months.

Two years later, to commemorate the miraculous event in Sicily, Reverend Ljudevit Petrak held in Pleternica the first novena to Our Lady of Tears. Each year, more and more worshippers prayed with the Reverend, so in 1958 the bishop of Siracuse gave the Pleternica parish a blessed painting of the Lady of Our Tears, together with the cotton wool that was used to touch the miraculous relief.

In 2005, fifty years after the first procession, Pleternica was declared a Marian shrine. Many pilgrims from all over Croatia come to this picturesque Slavonian town between August 23rd and 31st in search of peace and harmony. The special moment is the solemn votive procession on the last day of the novena.

The shrine in Pleternica lives throughout the whole year, not just in August, and a votive day is celebrated on the last Saturday of the month. Every pilgrim is welcome, every traveler is received as a dear guest.

You will enjoy the silence, but also the beauty of this picturesque town.