Police have reportedly arrested an individual in connection with the vandalism and arson captured on video at Apparition Hill in Medjugorje during the early morning of Tuesday, July 28.
The Croatian publication Jutarnjilist is reporting that 31-year-old Polish citizen Bartłomiej Włodzimierz Krakowiak has been arrested but his identity has not been officially confirmed by the authorities. He was arrested near the Croatian border with a backpack.
Stunningly, Krakowiak previously made a well-publicized 1300-kilometer pilgrimage from Warsaw to Medjugorje. His life was riddled with a host of problems such as depression, addiction, and incarceration. Seeking God, he found Medjugorje. His life story is even part of a 2024 documentary called Powołany 2. Of note, Krakowiak once said, “I believe that Mary appears to visionaries. No one needs to confirm that to me.” A motive has not yet been reported for the act of vandalism.
Black paint was smeared on the statue of Our Lady at Apparition Hill, and various graffiti was written on the bottom of the statue, including the phrase “devil in a skirt.” Two other images near the Blue Cross on the site were also vandalized, and security footage captured a man pouring gasoline and setting fire near the outdoor altar at Church of Saint James the Greater.
The phrases on the statue are written in English, and other banners nearby were written in Polish. Some of the phrases on these banners included “Medjugorje is a deception,” “Our Lady = the devil,” and “Only Jesus.” The visionaries that have received apparitions of Our Lady there were also called “fraudsters” on the banners, and the perpetrator wrote that he or she has “evidence.”
Last night, an anti-Catholic burns part of the Marian pilgrimage center in Medjugorje, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
— Catholics for Catholics 🇺🇲 (@CforCatholics) July 28, 2026
Millions of pilgrims have visited this site over the years to pray after apparitions of the Virgin Mary started in 1981.
The suspect who is from Warsaw has been… pic.twitter.com/YZgNjuYfpv
The Medjugorje Parish Office released a statement encouraging prayer for the conversion of the perpetrator. “In a special way, we invite all faithful to respond to this event in the way that Our Lady has been teaching us for over forty years in Medjugorje: with prayer, fasting, and forgiveness,” part of the statement reads. “We pray for the conversion of the hearts of those who committed this act, that the Lord may touch them with His grace and lead them on the path of goodness. We also pray for peace in the hearts of all people. Our Lady constantly invites us to be carriers of peace. May this event encourage us to take her invitation even more seriously: not to return evil for evil, but to witness love, forgiveness, and hope with our lives.”
Six children began receiving apparitions of the Blessed Mother in Medjurogje in 1981 during the Soviet occupation of Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina). Pope Francis allowed organized pilgrimages to the site starting in 2019 and the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a nihil obstat (approval of the spiritual experience) in 2024. The Note clarifies that “the positive assessment that most of the messages of Medjugorje are edifying does not imply a declaration that they have a direct supernatural origin” and invites pilgrims “to be strongly advised that pilgrimages are not made to meet with alleged visionaries but to have an encounter with Mary, the Queen of Peace.”
The site draws around one million pilgrims every year.
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