The statue of the Mother of God of Bistrica is a Black Madonna of the late 1400s, buried for safekeeping from the Turks in 1545 and rediscovered, with the aid of supernatural light, in 1588. Again forgotten and walled in, it was rediscovered July 15, 1684. The Bishop of Zagreb dedicated a new church to the Mother of God in Marija Bistrica on July 15, 1731. The shrine's pilgrimage season begins on Pentecost and includes pilgrimages from the county of Varaždin on the Sunday after St. Peter's day (June 29), from Zagreb on the Sunday before St. Margaret’s day (July 13), and on the feast of the Assumption (August 15). The Archbishop of Zagreb crowned the Mother of God of Bistrica Queen of Croatia in 1935. (Information from the shrine's site, www.svetiste-mbb.hr, and elsewhere; picture from "Marija Bistrica," Kroatien - Reiseführer, Informationen und Bilder, www.go4sun.de.)