Apparition
Apparition of Our Lady, Help of Christians, at Filippsdorf
Church-approved Marian apparition · Filippsdorf (Filipov), Diocese of Litoměřice, Czech Republic, 1866
In the early morning of 13 January 1866 Magdalena Kade, a poor seamstress of Filippsdorf in northern Bohemia who had been given the last rites, saw the Blessed Virgin Mary at her bedside and was instantly and completely cured of a long and mortal illness. A diocesan commission examined the healing and recognised it as miraculous, and the basilica of Our Lady, Help of Christians, was raised over the room where it happened.
Background
The neo-Romanesque pilgrimage church built over the room was raised between 1873 and 1886; the shrine was entrusted to the Redemptorists in 1885, and it was Pope Pius XI who gave the church the rank of minor basilica in 1926. Filipov became known as the Lourdes of Bohemia; pilgrims still keep the anniversary with a Mass in the small hours of 13 January. In the twentieth century, after the expulsions that followed the Second World War, the shrine took on a further character as a place of reconciliation between Czechs and Germans. Only a single sentence of the apparition is handed down — that the sick woman was healed — and nothing further should be added to it.
Location
Filippsdorf (Filipov), Diocese of Litoměřice
Country
Czech Republic
Approved status
Approved
Year of apparition
1866
Visionaries
- Magdalena Kade
Subject
marian
Content subtype
approved_apparition
Decision authority
Bishop Augustin Pavel Wahala of Litoměřice, whose diocesan commission of inquiry recognised the healing as miraculous