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The pilgrimage tradition in Christianity probably stemmed from the Jewish tradition of visiting the Temple in Jerusalem. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land became frequent after Constantine’s mother Helena made her pilgrimage there in AD 326. This was followed by the pilgrimage of St. Jerome and his companions around AD 385.
In the medieval period, the difficulties and dangers of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land led to the foundation of important pilgrimage sites closer to home, where the remains of important local saints were venerated. The Shrine of St. James at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela was far and away the most popular medieval pilgrimage site. Based on the legend that St. James had visited the Iberian Peninsula to carry out missionary activity, the site drew tens of thousands of visitors from all over Europe. Even today, it is estimated that well over one hundred thousand people a year visit the shrine even though the Church has never really endorsed the idea that the relics constitute the bones of St. James himself.
During the nineteenth century, as an outgrowth of the remarkable Catholic revival after 1848, the shrine of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes became the most popular pilgrimage site in Europe. In 1858, Bernadette Soubirous, an illiterate peasant girl from an impoverished family, first saw apparitions of the Virgin Mary at an isolated spot outside the village. From 1860 to the present, it is estimated that more than two hundred million pilgrims have come to Lourdes.
Even today, the pilgrimage tradition, which is closely linked with apparitions of the Virgin Mary, remains strong among Catholics. Traditional sites like Santiago de Compostela and Lourdes continue to attract millions of visitors, but new sites have been added. Perhaps the most important of these is the shrine at Medjugorje in Bosnia. Medjugorje is the most popular pilgrimage site in the Balkans. It is estimated that more than fifteen million pilgrims have come to the isolated mountain village since apparitions of the Virgin Mary were first seen in 1981.
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