Medjugorje International Youth Festival

What it is

Medjugorje International Youth Festival, better known as Mladifest, brings young Catholics together in the village of Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lasts six days, from 1 to 6 August, every summer. Mladifest means something like Youthfest. About fifty thousand people come in a typical year, which makes it the second-largest regular gathering of Catholic young people, after World Youth Day. The shrine at Medjugorje organises the whole event, and the people who attend are mainly young, arriving from many countries around the world.

How it began

The festival dates from 1989, when two Franciscan priests from Herzegovina, Slavko Barbarić and Tomislav Vlašić, set it going. They wanted to honour what the seers at Medjugorje describe as the two thousandth birthday of the Virgin Mary. Vlašić guided the festival himself until 1991. Barbarić, in those years, had been sentenced by the Church for disobedience and was working in Medjugorje without authorisation up to 2000. The apparitions reported at Medjugorje are described as alleged and presumed, and the people who report them as alleged seers.

The shrine and the seers

Reports that Mary, mother of Jesus, appears to people in Medjugorje lie behind the festival. The accounts call these apparitions presumed and describe the people who report them as alleged seers. Those seers give 5 August as her birthday, and the summer dates rest on that claim. Their claim also gave the festival its first purpose, the marking of what they call her two thousandth birthday. Since 1989 young people have arrived in the village each August, and the shrine there organises the festival.

A message in 2020

In 2020, the young people gathered at Medjugorje received a message from Pope Francis. He put Mary before them as a pattern to follow, and said her example should go on fascinating and guiding the faithful. Nothing in the message touched on the reported apparitions, and none of the messages ascribed to Our Lady of Medjugorje was quoted in it. The Pope did not name the seers or refer to their claims either. The letter went to young Catholics from many countries who had come to the village for the festival.

Festivals elsewhere

The idea has travelled. A Croatian version, Mladifest Hrvatska, has been running since 2019, and a North American Mladifest also exists. Croats living in America and Canada came together for it in Los Angeles in April 2023. These offshoots keep the name and the summer habit of gathering young Catholics, but they are held away from the Herzegovinian village where the original festival began. The first one remains the largest, and it is the one organised by the Medjugorje shrine on the dates of 1 to 6 August.

How Medjugorje International Youth Festival is kept

The festival belongs to young Catholics, and they come to it from many countries. It opens on 1 August and finishes on 6 August, with the days around 5 August at its heart, since that is the date the seers give for the Virgin Mary's birthday. A normal year brings about fifty thousand visitors. The Medjugorje shrine runs the event, and among regular Catholic youth gatherings only World Youth Day is larger. In 2020 a message from Pope Francis reached those taking part. Versions of the festival have since appeared in Croatia and North America.

When and where

Every year from 1 to 6 August. The dates are fixed, not moveable, and they are tied to 5 August, the day the seers of Medjugorje give as the birthday of the Virgin Mary. The gathering ends the day after that date.

Medjugorje, a village in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is its home, and the shrine there organises it. Young people travel to it from many countries. Related festivals have taken root in Croatia, where Mladifest Hrvatska has been held since 2019, and in North America, where a Mladifest gathering took place in Los Angeles in April 2023.

What Medjugorje International Youth Festival means

What the festival means sits in two places at once. For the young people who travel to it, it is six days of gathering with others of the same faith, second in size only to World Youth Day among regular Catholic youth gatherings. For the shrine and the seers, the dates carry the weight of a claimed birthday and a claimed anniversary. Accounts of the apparitions themselves are given as alleged, and the Pope's 2020 message left them aside.

Questions people ask about Medjugorje International Youth Festival

See also

Name dayA calendar tradition where people celebrate the feast day of the saint after whom they are named.PysankaA wax-resist egg decorating tradition kept by Slavic communities for Easter and spring renewal.Festivity of Saint BlaiseAn annual patron saint festival in Dubrovnik with processions, relics and dovesKoliadaA traditional winter caroling and solstice festival kept across Slavic Europe

Good reading and sources

• Medjugorje International Youth Festival on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.