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CHICAGO — At press time, Horizons’ Sept. 16-28 pilgrimage was 25 percent booked.
The main objective of the pilgrimage to the roots of the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church is to honor the Mother of God in her expression of love for her children as Our Lady of Mariapoch, a longstanding devotion in the Eparchy of Parma, which has a shrine dedicated to her in Burton, Ohio.
This devotion was brought to the United States by Greek Catholic immigrants from Hungary, where in the poor town of Pocs an icon of the Blessed Mother wept during Divine Liturgy Nov. 4, 1696, and continued weeping until Dec. 8, 1696.
Having heard of the miraculous healings attributed to the weeping icon, Emperor Leopold I ordered that the icon be brought to Vienna in 1697, and installed in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, where it is still today.
During the Second World War, the cathedral was badly damaged but the icon remained untouched.
To appease the people of Pocs, the local bishop commissioned a copy of the miraculous icon for their church. This icon also shed tears, from Aug. 1 to 5, 1715. The weeping icon was found to be miraculous and public veneration was permitted. Pocs quickly developed into a popular pilgrimage site.
A larger church was built to welcome pilgrims, and the Basilian Fathers from Mukachevo, in present-day Ukraine, came to care for the shrine and recorded the many miraculous healings that occurred there.
The icon at Mariapocs shed tears again in 1905, between Dec. 3 and Dec. 19, and then Dec. 30 and 31.
Today, the miraculous icon, housed in the twin-spire minor basilica in western Hungary, is visited by about 800,000 pilgrims each year. This year, faithful of the Eparchy of Parma will be among them.
For information on the fall pilgrimage, go to www.parma.org, email [email protected] or call (216) 470-3287.
Historical information above from www.shrineofmariapoch.com.
As published in Horizons, May 6, 2018.
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