| A: Csiksomlyo (in Rumanian
Sumuleu, Sumleu, a place near Miercurea Ciu, Rumania) in Hungary
before 1921 is the most important place of pilgrimage for the Roman
Catholic Hungarians living in Transylvania. |
- The pilgrimage site is comprised of a Franciscan monastery
church, a Way of the Cross, the Anthony Chapel and the
so-called Savior Chapel, located on the nearby Kissomlyo Hill
(seleu-mic in Rumanian). The first establishment of
the Franciscans there is attested to around the year 1400.
Around 1441-1442 Janos Hunyadi, as a memorial of his victory
over the Turks, established thirty-two monks there to construct
a new building and to enlarge the cloister and the church. Pope
Eugene IV in 1444 granted the church an indulgence for the
Feast of the Visitation. The frequently destroyed, renewed and
enlarged church was torn down in 1802, the crypt alone
remaining. Between 1804 and 1835 a substantial new church was
built. The furnishings of the new church are all of the
nineteenth century with the exception of the statue honored
there. Until the present time the place has been under the care
of the Franciscans.
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- The focus of the cult there is a
late-Gothic wooden statue of the Virgin Mary, over two meters
tall, which stands on a pedestal above the high altar. Mary
stands in the sun, holding the Child Jesus and a scepter. It is
presumably the work of a Hungarian wood-carving center from the
sixteenth century. The miraculous character of the statue was
the object of several episcopal investigations during the
eighteenth century. On September 20, 1798 it was officially
declared a wonderworking image and was crowned.
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| The beginning of the pilgrimage,
which is still alive today, goes back to Pentecost of 1567. At
the time the Hungariana king (a non-Catholic), Zsigmond Janos
(1540-1571) with his Protestant army attacked the Catholics
assembled for what amounted to a congress to force them to
abandon their faith; however, he suffered a defeat, which was
ascribed to the help of the Virgin Mary. The pilgrimage has been
revived several times; as for example, after 1661, when
Turkish-Tartar troops ravaged the territory, though the statue
itself was rescued. The site was much loved during the ninteenth
century. Between twenty and thirty thousand faithful went
together there for the Feast of Pentecost. During the
four hundred years of its existence, the pilgrimage center has
served as a meeting place for the so-called Csango-Hungarians who
had settled in Moldavia and for the Catholic Hungarians in
Transylvania for whom it is also an important spiritual and
cultural center. The place has an important role in the
preservation of their national identity.
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