Radna: The Holy Shrine of the Multinational Banat Region (Romania)

Radna is the sacral heart of the Banat region in Romania. The shrine has united the Catholics for centuries in veneration of Virgin Mary regardless of their nationality and native language. Roman Catholic Bulgarians, Croatians (called Krashovani), Hungarians, Germans, Roma, Romanians, and Slovakians venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary together, but believers of the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Church also visit the sacred venue. Until the borders changed after the First World War, a great number of pilgrims had visited Radna every year from the region of the Great Hungarian Plain. The pilgrimage may be considered a rite of passage connecting the profane and the sacred place, and for a while earthly time ceases to exist for the believers. In my study I emphasize the experience of the ritual drama. Pilgrimage may be compared to a drama, except that the believers are not simple onlookers but rather constitutive actors in the religious event