On June 24, 1981, the day of Saint John the Baptist, two 16-year-old friends named Ivanka Ivankovic and Mirjana Dragicevic, were taking a walk behind the houses of Bijakovici, on the side of a hill called Podbrdo (one kilometer from the parish from Medjugorje). Suddenly, Ivanka saw the glowing figure of a woman. And in wonder she exclaimed: "Look at the Gospa (Lady)." But Mirjana didn't believe him.

Moments later, they met Milka Pavlovic, a 13-year-old girl, who upon seeing them invited them to gather the sheep she was herding. Ivanka, unable to contain herself, pleaded with the friends to accompany her back to Podbrdo to see if the glowing figure was still there. The girls nodded in disbelief. Once they reached the hill, Mirjana and Milka clearly saw the Virgin. Mirjana has described that the Woman wore a dress that did not correspond to the time and that she was holding a child in her arms. For her part, Ivanka became convinced that the Woman was the Virgin Mary.

 

Other girls, Vicka Ivankovic, who had gone out in search of her friends, spotted them in Podbrdo, realizing that they were staring at a certain point, when Vicka caught up with them, Mirjana pointed up at her and said: Look! Gospa! Vicka didn't look, she took her slippers and ran out of the place. Upon reaching the first houses of the village, Vicka began to cry, because she could not believe that her friends were joking in that way about the Virgin. He was still crying when two boys approached them: Ivan Ivankovic, 20, and Ivan Dragicevic, 16. Vicka told the young men what had happened on the hill and begged them to accompany her back to the site. In this way, the three young men set off towards the hill and when they arrived, they saw the figure of the glowing woman. Scared, Ivan ran off.

 

Vicka saw a young woman in a raised dress, wavy black hair, with a white veil. Around his head he saw a crown of 12 stars, which was not supported by anything. The Woman had in her arms a child whom she covered and uncovered with her veil. Her feet covered by her dress rested on a cloud that hovered over the earth.

 

The Virgin signaled to the young people to come closer, they obeyed in fear. When the Virgin left. Vicka and Milka ran back to the Pavlovic family home, where they found Milka's older sister Marija and related their experience in Podbrdo. Thus the news spread among the relatives of the seers, who, amidst astonishment and bewilderment, tried to calm and reason with the seers. They told them: "Don't say things like that, the Gospa is respected" and they were sent to confess.

 

Second day. June 25th.
At noon, a small group of relatives suggested that some of the young people accompany them that same afternoon to the same place and at the same time. At around six in the afternoon, Ivanka, Vicka, Mirjana and Ivan Dragicevic and a group of relatives and neighbors headed towards Podbrdo. Suddenly Ivanka turned and said: Look, the Gospa! The three girls saw her, Ivan and a woman who, realizing that the Virgin was signaling the boys to come closer to Her, exclaimed: Look, run, she's calling you!

Vicka ran to town to look for Marija, who was with 10-year-old Jacov Colo, Mirjana's cousin. Vicka said to them: Come, come, hurry up, the Gospa is up there!

According to the boys, they saw a kind of rays or flashes of light on the mountain, three to be exact, after which they felt a very strong urge to climb to the top of the hill. According to witnesses, the six boys were going so fast that "they seemed to fly over the stones, as if they had wings on their feet", at a speed impossible to follow.

A few minutes later, the relatives and other people who accompanied them arrived at the place where the six boys are on their knees. But they did not respond to his calls, they did not flinch at his screams, they did not move at his shoves. They tried to move them, but their bodies were stiff and heavy. All they did was move their lips, as if they were talking, but they made no sounds. They shook their heads, as if nodding or denying. According to witnesses that day, the boys' faces became “radiant”, and their open smiles were mixed with tears of joy.

Thirty minutes later, the boys regained their perception of space and time. They weren't able to speak, they hugged and moaned between tears and laughter.

According to what they said that day, they saw the Virgin Mary without the child. She was indescribably beautiful, smiling and joyful, and when they were before her, about a meter or two away, they began to pray simultaneously. First, an Our Father, then a Hail Mary and then a Gloria. The first time they heard his voice was when he accompanied them in reciting the Lord's Prayer and the Glory Be, but he was silent when the children said the Hail Mary.

 

According to the seers, the voice of the Virgin is "indescribable, like a melody" of an instrument that has never been heard.

After praying, some of the boys dared to talk to her, the first being Ivanka, who asked if she could see her mother, who died two months ago. The Lady answered that she would see her, but not now, but later, and not to worry, because her mother was with her. Mirjana then asked for some sign so that her family and friends would believe her, at which the Lady just smiled.

A few minutes later the Virgin said goodbye saying: "God be with you, my angels . " The children asked her if they would see her the next day, and she answered yes by nodding her head.

Curiously, it did not occur to anyone that afternoon to ask him who he was, since they assumed that he was the Virgin Mary. This greatly surprised his relatives.

That afternoon, the children were radiant again, and both their accounts and those of the witnesses spread like wildfire throughout the Medjugorje valley. Many went to bed that day wanting to climb, the following afternoon, what they began to call the Hill of Apparitions.

 

Third day. June 26th
The morning was cloudy and there was a threat of a storm, not only of rain against the land, but of restlessness that threatened to destroy the calm in which the inhabitants of Medjugorje lived. The children's relatives were scared, but at the same time they were convinced that they were telling the truth.

Vicka's grandmother advised her to take a bottle of holy water to the mountains that afternoon, to drive away the vision if she was not who she said she was and go to hell or wherever she came from.

After five in the afternoon, the six boys, plus the two of the first day, headed towards the same place, but already on this occasion, those who accompanied them exceeded three hundred people, that is, almost all the inhabitants in the Valley.

 

When they saw that crowd, the children were afraid of what might happen if the Virgin did not appear. However, the appearance was immediate. Again, the flashes of light were the premonitory signal, and again, the six boys from the day before took to the race. In this way, the group of seers was formed: Vicka, Mirjana, Ivanka, Marija, Ivan and Jakov.

 

When the witnesses came after them, they were once again absent from reality, out of all experience of time or sensation. Their faces were cheerful and smiling, in a striking way and their voices were only heard when, simultaneously and without warning, they began to pray.

 

Before the people arrived Vicka took the holy water and threw it at the image, while shouting: “If you are our blessed Mother, stay with us. If not, go and leave us alone ”. The woman's reaction was to smile, to which Mirjana decided to ask who she was. "I am the Blessed Virgin Mary," he replied. When the boys reacted again, already surrounded by crowds of people who threatened to crush them, they decided to descend the mountain towards their house, and to their surprise they found Marija crying inconsolably in a small clearing in the bushes. Apparently, Marija felt that "call" again when they were still at the top, and descended the mountain without anyone having noticed her absence.

 

According to Marija later, the Virgin Mary had appeared to her again, this time to her alone and in a very different way than she had done it minutes before with the others.

Apparently, the Virgin no longer wore that gray-blue tunic with her white veil, but was wearing black and wept very sadly. When Marija, seized with anguish, asked him why he was crying, the Virgin Mary gave one of the most important messages: "Peace, peace and only peace."

At that moment, a wooden cross appeared behind the Virgin and She spoke again: "Peace must reign between man and God and among all men . " He added that men must turn to God and turn their lives into lives of prayer.

This happened in a place that today is marked with a wooden cross, on the ascent to Podbrdo, among the sculptures representing the first and second joyous mystery of the Rosary.

 

The parish priest, Brother Jozo Zovko, returned to town that day. He had spent the week in Zagreb attending various functions and when he returned, Medjugorje had nothing to do with the quiet and serene village that he had left six days earlier.
The children were brought before him and questioned. Father Jozo Zovko did not believe them and instructed them to be cautious and prudent, but always being respectful towards them. After all, he thought it would be a child's play, but that same afternoon, when he saw the police cars arriving in Medjugorje, he got scared and came to think that the communists were up to something.

The details of this interrogation and of how Fray Jozo lived these days and everything else, he recounts in an extensive interview.

 

On this day, three of the characteristics of the Medjugorje apparitions that continue to accompany them to this day were recorded: the group of six seers, group or individual apparitions, and the Virgin's messages addressed not only to the seers or to a local entity. but to all humanity.

Milka and the other Ivan, who saw the apparition on the first day but did not return the second, never saw the Virgin again. That night Medjugorje had ceased to be an anonymous and quiet town in Herzegovina, and its name was already spreading by word of mouth in the nearby regions of the area.

 

Fourth day. June 27th.
On Saturday morning, hostilities began against the boys and their families. Citluk authorities took them away for questioning. They didn't really know very well what the children were talking about, but they did know that they were causing a stir in the area.
They were subjected to a “long and meticulous” interrogation about who they were, who their families were, what they worked for, where they lived, how they met each other, and what they were talking about on those days that had caused so much fuss among the locals of the valley . The boys responded at all times "with simplicity and without contradictions."

At the end of the interrogation by the political and police authorities, they were taken to the medical office. This was the first of an uncountable number of tests and analyzes that the six boys had undergone since 1981. The boys were declared "perfectly healthy and balanced."

 

To the reassurance of their parents, the boys returned home for lunch. Some of them wanted to forbid the children to go up the mountain that afternoon, but it was impossible to stop them. Also, on that day the number of people who had come to Medjugorje exceeded one thousand, no one wanted to imagine how the crowd would have taken it if the parents had not allowed them to go up the hill with them. The crowd awaited them praying the Rosary. To the boys, all these manifestations were strange to them, but deep down they did not care about everything that happened around them, because according to them, seeing the Virgin was like “being in Paradise”.

The next day, at the same time, they saw the rays of light again and again fell into that kind of absence of time and space.

According to the boys, after saying different prayers with her, the Virgin Mary spoke to them for a long time, since the children did not stop asking her questions. That day, speaking of the priests, the Virgin Mary would tell them: "You have to firmly believe, and you have to take care of the faith of the people."

That day another novelty happened, and that is that they had another apparition, all together, at the foot of Podbrdo, when they returned to their homes. On that occasion the Virgin Mary told them: "Do not be afraid of anything" , and said goodbye to them saying: "May God be with you, my angels."

 

Fifth day. June 28 .
This was the first day the authorities were really scared. As it was Sunday, and not having to work, some fifteen thousand people flooded Medjugorje. Something was happening that was not normal and was beyond the control of the local authorities.

At the same time, the village priest was absent and no one who did not live in Bijakovici, the boys' village, knew very well what was happening or who to turn to. A sense of fear mixed with hope confused everyone who, without saying anything, headed up the mountain simply following the crowd.

According to the notes that Friar Ljudevit Rupcic has left, that Sunday afternoon the crowd did not even allow the boys to advance towards the mountain.
At one point, at the usual time, the children fell to their knees, all at once, and again they were absent.

 

As the crowd was gathering against them to see them, a group of volunteers had organized to surround them and protect themselves from the tumult.

What the boys later told is that, once again, the Virgin Mary prayed an Our Father with them, was silent in the Hail Mary, and ended up accompanying them in the Gloria. Then the Virgin Mary made a sad face, because apparently, there were people in the crowd present who were blaspheming.

One of the children asked her to appear in the parish, in front of the whole world, because that is how they could believe them: She told him: "Blessed are those who, without having seen, have believed," the Virgin Mary answered. Then he asked them to pray, and to ask everyone else for prayers.

At the end of that apparition, there was a general state of joy among the thousands of pilgrims present, despite having been one of the hottest days of the year and having spent hours in the sun, following the boys.

 

Sixth day. June 29.
On Monday morning, the children were again detained by the authorities. On this occasion, they were taken to Mostar, where a psychiatric team had to examine them to declare that they were frauds or sick.

The news about Medjugorje had already appeared in the local press, which was a challenge for an officially atheistic regime, in which it is declared that God does not exist and in which, therefore, the Virgin Mary has no place in the media. of communication or as a figure of the Bethlehem.

 

However, the doctors, including a Muslim woman, Dr. Dzudza, declared them normal and healthy of mind and in her medical report she wrote that "the children are not crazy, but who brought them here."
At noon an uncountable crowd populated the mountain and prayed the Rosary without caring about the implacable sun or the presence of the military.

 

The Virgin Mary gave the seers a message: “There is only one God, only one faith. Believe strongly and trust ”.

On that day, physical cures occurred among the many patients who came there, of which the parish has evidence and documentation.

 

Seventh day. June 30th.
This was the first day that the local civil authorities planned a trap against the children. Not knowing how to stop the people who were going to Medjugorje, they decided to use two ladies from the village who, with the excuse of relieving them from the burden of the crowds, suggested a car ride to the children.

In the morning they left Bijakovici. Their houses and the mountains were already surrounded by people, so the boys were relieved to get rid of that, even for a couple of hours. In the van was Ivan, who had been locked up at home.

However, the van ride took longer than anticipated, and at one point the boys realized they wouldn't be in time for the apparition. They tried in vain to get the women to stop the car. When the time came, the five children fell into ecstasy there, in the gutter.

The only witnesses to this apparition are the two women who had taken them away deceived, who testified that they heard the children sing and pray the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be seven times.

 

And this is how the first seven days of apparitions passed. The events occurred at the same time and in the same place in Podbrdo, until August 12, when access to the mountain was officially prohibited.

That day, the army was deployed in Medjugorje as if it were a war. They moved helicopters, trucks full of soldiers with dogs patrolling the mountain and its surroundings, and they set up roadblocks at all accesses to the town. But this did not mitigate the testimony and determination of the boys, who continued to have the apparitions wherever they were, whether in the fields, on the other mountain, in their own houses and rooms.

 

They only knew, every day, that when it was about twenty minutes to seven in the afternoon, the Virgin would appear . Whether they were alone, in groups of two or three, or all six at the same time, every day at the same time, they had that mystical experience of ecstasy, in which they were absent from the temporal and sensory context that surrounded them. Sometimes they saw and heard exactly the same thing, and sometimes they heard different things, directed personally for each one of them without the others knowing what the Virgin was saying to the others.

 

According to the seers, to this day they continue to have the apparitions. With different frequency from each other, but being the same young woman of about eighteen, of an indescribable beauty and wonderful voice, the one who, as if time had not passed for her, visits them no matter where they are.