To understand why the Franciscans are so powerful in Medjugorje, you have to go back to the history of a region where Catholicism has generally struggled to gain a foothold. The Church first evangelised what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 9th century, but it proved difficult to convert the inhabitants of this isolated and mountainous land.
In the centuries that followed, a small sect emerged known as the Bosnian Church. Most scholars believed the Bosnians practised a form of Bogomilism or Catharism, though some think they were simply unwilling to subject themselves to either of the two factions that emerged during the Great Schism. In any event, Rome spent centuries trying to impose its authority on Bosnia, culminating in a Crusade launched by Pope Honorius III in 1225. But the Mongol invasion of Europe in 1241 forced the predominantly Hungarian crusaders to withdraw and defend their homeland.
Rome then decided to shift gears. In March of 1291, Pope Nicholas IV issued a bull, Prae cunctis, authorising the Franciscans to lead an inquisition against the Bosnian gnostics. Their first vicarate, which was established in 1340, remains in operation today.
In 1386, the Ottoman Empire began a series of raids into Bosnia that eventually grew into a full-scale invasion. By 1451, they had effectively subjugated the indigenous nobility and imposed military rule, which left the Franciscans in a dangerous position. They were an isolated group of Catholics living under the rule of an Islamic empire.
To make matters worse, several of Bosnia’s neighbours – including Hungary – had fought a crusade against the Ottomans less than a decade earlier. Was there any chance their conquerors were feeling merciful?
In 1463, the Franciscan friar Anđeo Zvizdović met Mehmed II, who was still in Bosnia overseeing the occupation, and convinced him to extend religious liberties to the country’s Catholics. Mehmed issued the Ahdname of Milodraž, declaring that “the Bosnian Franciscans… are under my protection,” and ensuring that “no one shall insult, put in danger or attack these lives, properties, and churches of these people.”
The original document is still in the care of the Franciscan monastery in Fojnica. The order maintained good relations with the Turkish rulers until, in 1878, the Austro-Hungarian Empire invaded and occupied Bosnia. With the region now under the control of an arch-Catholic monarch, Pope Leo XIII instituted a normal diocesan hierarchy.
In consultation with the Habsburgs, he appointed the secular priest and theologian Josip Stadler as the first Archbishop of Vrhbosna: then, as now, the head of the Catholic Church in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Stadler immediately began lobbying Rome to purge the Franciscans from local parishes, fearing they would compromise the new archdiocesan hierarchy. In 1883, the Pope began transferring parishes to the archdiocese, and in 20 years the Franciscans had lost about a third of their territory to Vrhbosna.
In 1945, Bosnia and Herzegovina were incorporated into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). The communists suspected the order of harbouring fascist sympathies, as their Croatian brothers had been heavily involved in the Ustashi regime. The SFRY slaughtered hundreds of Franciscans. Among these were 30 friars in Široki Brijeg, who were executed for refusing to remove their habits or stamp on a crucifix. They’ve become integral to the Medjugorje movement, and a “novena to the Široki Brijeg martyrs” is prayed by supporters around the world.
Over the course of seven centuries, the Bosnian Franciscans struggled to preserve their hegemony from gnostics, the Orthodox, Muslims, Soviets and the diocesan hierarchy. Now much of their authority may depend on what the Vatican decides.
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