Shrine of the Mother of God from Krasno

Church of the Mother of God in Krasnarska

East of Krasno and the village of Devčići, the road leads to the church of Our Lady of Krasnarska from the 18th century, built on the foundations of a medieval church. The greatest artistic value in the church is represented by the wooden coffered ceiling, painted scenes from the life of Jesus, Mary and the saints, with Latin quotations, from 1740. People have been gathering here since ancient times on August 15 for the feast of the Assumption.

Legend of the origin of the church:

Once upon a time, long before the pre-Turkish era, children from the village would go every day to the forest glades above the Krasno polje, to graze the treasures of the locals there with juicy Velebit grasses. They played in the forest, chasing and hiding from each other with roars and squeals, from morning to night.

One day, one of them finds an unusual piece of wood at the edge of the forest, so he calls the others to him. The tree looked like a section of stump cut flat with a saw, with a flower carved on it, and a drawing in the flower. They carefully studied the picture until they recognized the figure of a woman with a child in her arms. As both the woman and the child wore a crown on their heads, one little girl cried out that it was the queen with the little prince. The elders, those who went to religious education, still concluded that it was the Mother of God with baby Jesus.

They took the wood carving down to the church and excitedly told the priest everything in the same voice, interrupting each other's words. The latter listened to them, took the carving and stored it in the sacristy, but he did not see anything unusual in everything, because he was convinced that it was the work of a shepherd while he was doing his day. Before the morning mass, the priest noticed that the carving was gone, but he didn't care too much. That morning, the children went again with the treasure and in the same place, they saw the same carving. In the evening, when they gave it to the priest again, he almost chased them away, because he thought that the children were making fun of him, but he kept it anyway.

He decides to stay up all night, catch the kids in the act and thus put an end to their prank. However, just before dawn, miraculously, the carving mysteriously disappeared, even though he didn't bat an eye. He could hardly wait for the children to return to the village in the evening, and when he saw the same carving in their hands, he asked them to take him with them tomorrow. The children's parents heard all this, and so did they. At the same place in the forest, a miraculous picture was waiting for them all, about which the children and the priest had told. It was clear to everyone that the Mother of God was telling them that they should build her church in that very place. Only the priest was suspicious, grumbling that the place was hidden by a forest, that it was uneven, that the future church would not be visible from the valley, that there was no road to the place. In a word, the place is unsuitable for the construction of the Church of Our Lady.

However, at the insistence of the parishioners, he reported the unusual event to the bishop. The bishop sent his assistants to Krasno, who thoroughly studied the carved image, inspected the place where it was found, and recorded the testimonies of children and priests. When the bishop looked at all the facts, he made the decision to build the church of St. Mary, which the people immediately, from miles away, called the Sanctuary of the Mother of God from Krasnego.

Taken from: http://abcgeografija.com/, https://visitsenj.com/