It’s a mystery we still can’t quite solve (though we’re working on it). What exactly transpired at a place called Izbično?

It has to do with a question posed to the Virgin Mary on January 22, 1982 by the seers at Medjugorje, in what is now Hercegovina. The question: “Is the apparition at Izbično coming from God or the devil?”

Replied Mary, “It is coming from God.”

That’s almost the entirety of what we have heard about it.

This exchange is in an old, seminal book by the great Marian scholar Father René Laurentin, Messages and Teachings of Mary at Medjugorje, co-authored with Father René Lejeune, with no further information offered. It apparently was taken from a church bulletin.

So far, no one we have encountered knows all the specifics of the apparitions (how Mary appeared, how many times). But we do know this:

Izbično is a remote and intensely Catholic village in the rocky highlands of western Herzegovina about nineteen miles as the crow flies from Medjugorje.

It’s near the Franciscan friary at Široki Brijeg, where the priest at the time of the first apparitions in Medjugorje, Father Jozo Zovko, was transferred in 1992. From 1982 to actually 1983, 18 persons, mostly females, said they received apparitions at Izbično.

Does it not remind one of Medjugorje: the same rolling hills, the pilgrims in procession up them, the simple church, and even a “holy mountain”?

Its population is Croatian and overwhelmingly Catholic.

The village has endured famine, influenza, war, Communist persecution, and mass emigration. And it resembles the way Medjugorje was in its earlier days:

But there are also those whispers of the supernatural.

One regional discussion stated plainly that apparitions were occurring there “likewise to children,” comparing Izbično with other lesser-known sites, including one called Grab, that were overshadowed by Medjugorje.

Many are the secrets—and the secret visitations—of Mary through the years and ages.

Unfortunately, the surviving public record is wafer thin.

The names of the children are not readily available. Nor are the precise dates, descriptions of the Virgin, alleged messages, or records of an official Church investigation.

Was it a brief series of visions?

Were the children silenced (as was attempted at Medjugorje by Communists and then an antagonistic bishop)?

Did the events occur before or after Medjugorje began in 1981?

Or were the reported experiences somehow connected with Medjugorje itself?

There is even a mysterious mountain connected with the village called Oruga. that remind one of Mount Krizevac in Medjugorje.

A late Franciscan priest Father Franjo Mabić, who documented the history and traditions of Izbično, wrote a book titled Oruga—The Holy Mountain.

Why was it called holy?

Was there an apparition there? Or was this the location  for the ones in the 1980s?

A miraculous sign?

A hidden place of prayer during persecution?

The best-known supernatural tradition at Izbično concerns not an apparition, but two women who suffered under the Communists. Both were named Dragica Pavković.

Known locally as the “Two Dragicas,” the women were arrested in 1947 and reportedly tortured for forty days because they would not reveal the hiding places of male relatives. They were shot on December 12, 1947, and buried in a remote location.

For years, fear prevented villagers from openly honoring them. Eventually their graves became a place of prayer.  The most frequently repeated miracle: that concerns a man named Rajko Pavković, who reportedly suffered from severe skin cancer. He cleaned and fenced the neglected grave of the two women. According to local tradition, his cancer then disappeared.

No accessible medical dossier or formal Church ruling has been found, so the case cannot be called an authenticated miracle.

But believers continued to visit the graves, pray, and ask for the intercession of the two murdered women.

Some locals speak of them as martyrs or even saints, though there is no indication that the Catholic Church has formally beatified them or opened a public cause.

Izbično also experienced a strange physical event in August 1986, five years after the Medjugorje apparitions began, according to Večernji list. A large elliptical mark reportedly appeared in a field—about forty-three feet long and eighteen feet wide. The phenomenon was photographed and covered by a Yugoslav newspaper.

Izbično’s version of a “permanent sign”?

Or something paranormal?

Like crop circles?

Similar patterns succeeded the original one.

Physicists calculated that such a long, wide and deep trace could have been made by a body weighing about fifty tons. The area is inaccessible and this load could only have come from the air, aircraft with such an elliptical footprint were not known.

Some wondered whether it had been caused by a landed craft or some unknown aerial phenomenon. Others connected it loosely with the atmosphere of unusual events surrounding Medjugorje.

It remains unexplained.

Izbično sits within what might be called a Marian corridor of western Herzegovina.

Older regional traditions speak of Marian appearances, miraculous water, hidden chapels, and protection during persecution, especially near the friary.

In 2024, the Vatican authorized public devotion and pilgrimage connected with Medjugorje because of its abundant spiritual fruits, while stopping short of formally declaring the apparitions supernatural. Izbično may therefore represent a smaller, largely forgotten strand of the same regional mystery.

The visionaries from Medjugorje were said to have received kind words from those in Izbično, but the Blessed Virgin forcefully reminded them that they must not have any contact with these persons, nor invite them to Medjugorje. “Did I not tell you not to come together with those children? I am your mother; you must obey me.”

The evidence does not yet permit anyone to state that authentic Marian apparitions definitely occurred there.

But neither should the reports be casually dismissed; for the Virgin Mary indicated they were real.

There is enough to warrant further investigation.

Perhaps Izbično was merely touched by the religious fervor spreading through Herzegovina.

Or perhaps something authentic occurred there and remained hidden.

Sometimes Heaven chooses famous places.

Sometimes it chooses forgotten ones.

[resources: books on Medjugorje]

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