THE STATUE OF THE MIRACULOUS VIRGIN MARY AND THE PILGRIMAGE TRADITION IN MARIÁNSKÁ
INTRODUCTION
The statue of the Miraculous Virgin Mary in the Church of St. Joachim was originally placed in the Capuchin hospice in Mariánská (Maria Sorg). According to tradition, it was discovered in a henhouse near the so-called Red House (until the town fire of 1873 house no. 119, today no. 273 on Republic Square). The statue is a Baroque work of the so-called Spanish type, polychromed and adorned with crowns hammered from gilded sheet metal. Damage is visible on the back of the head and body.
The first pilgrimage to the statue, with archiepiscopal approval, took place on the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary on 2 July 1694. On the occasion of an anniversary of the canonisation of St. Bernard, two kneeling miners were added to the statue in 1796, symbolically expressing the connection between the mining town and the protection of the Mother of God.
ORIGIN OF THE STATUE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE PILGRIMAGE SITE
The statue was donated to the original chapel at Sorg by Lucie Mádrová, a citizen of Jáchymov. She had inherited it after the death of the town judge David Weidner in 1682. The reputation of the miraculous statue soon spread, and pilgrimages began to be organised.
In 1902, the Capuchin Father Franziskus Seraphin published the brochure “Gebets-Erhörungen durch die Fürsprache der heil. Mutter Maria-Sorg,” compiled according to the monastery’s memorial book (Memorabitienbuch). It describes healings and rescues attributed to the statue’s intercession. The author notes that these cases were not officially examined by the Church but were in accordance with the Decrees of Pope Urban VIII from 1625 and 1631 regulating the publication of miracle accounts.
EVENTS AFTER 1949
In September 1949, the monastery in Mariánská was closed. At that time only two Capuchins remained there – Father Optat and Brother Prokop. Anna Kämpf and a cook were employed there, and Josef Frank served as altar boy and organist.
Shortly before the closure, Father Optat, Chaplain Smejkal and Josef Frank transported the statue to the church in Nové Zvolání. Jáchymov did not seem safe to them, and the local priest showed no interest in housing the statue. Father Optat and Chaplain Smejkal were subsequently arrested by the State Security on charges of allegedly storing weapons.
On 12 June 1952, the statue was transferred to the Dean’s Church of St. Joachim in Jáchymov. This move provoked resistance in Vejprty. The Capitular Consistory in Prague initially decided that the statue should alternate monthly between Jáchymov and Nové Zvolání. As neither side accepted this arrangement, the Consistory ruled on 8 June 1954 that the statue must return to Nové Zvolání.
The authorities of Jáchymov, including the chairman of the Local National Committee, local residents and representatives of the uranium mines, drafted a memorandum supported by signatures of believers and sent it to the Consistory on 12 June 1954. They argued that the statue had been donated by a citizen of Jáchymov to the chapel in Mariánská, which had been a filial church of the Jáchymov parish, and therefore historically and administratively belonged to Jáchymov.
On 31 July 1954, the Prague Consistory finally decided that the statue would remain in Jáchymov.
On 8 November 1987, the Archbishop of Prague, František Cardinal Tomášek, transferred the pilgrimage site from Mariánská to the Dean’s Church of St. Joachim in Jáchymov by decree “in perpetual memory.”
SAVED OBJECTS
In addition to the statue, several other items were rescued from Mariánská. Josef Frank carried the nativity scene and several paintings to Jáchymov, for which he was arrested and investigated.
After the demolition of the monastery and the later reopening of the area, a native of the region, expelled after 1945 to Greifenstein in Austria, visited Mariánská. On the site of the demolished monastery he found the wrought-iron cross that had originally stood on the church tower. He took it to Austria, where in 1966 it was installed on the façade of the Church of Our Lady of Maria-Sorg in Greifenstein. Thus, even this cross preserves the memory of the original pilgrimage site.
