Shrine of Our Lady of Snows

This shrine is located near the Calvary in Bratislava. In 1678-1679 and again in 1712-1713, there was a plague in Bratislava. After this, votive chapels were built. One on the Calvary, one on the Deep Path in honor of the Virgin Mary, where the statue of the Madonna was placed. According to Elek Jordánszky's testimony, these were built by the Lautermann family, out of gratitude for the preservation. The guardians of the Calvary stations and these chapels are the hermits Balázs and Jeromos. The statue of the Madonna is made of sandstone, 45x50 cm, an imitation of the Mariacelli statue. She is dressed in a brocade dress. Only the head of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus are visible from the dress. Elek Jordánszky prayed in front of this statue several times, along with many other pilgrims. Sometimes there was also a mass in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the Mélyút. Between 1820 and 1825, the parish priest of Bratislava, József Schneider, the canon of the parish chapter, and the abbot of the Virgin Mary, built a new one in place of the small chapel on the Mélyút, twenty meters long and ten meters wide, with the help of voluntary donations from the city of Bratislava, with the permission of the prince-primate of Esztergom, Sándor Rudnay, and the work of the architect Ignác Feigler, in the late Baroque style. On 15 September 1824, this new chapel was consecrated by the provost of Bratislava, József Straiter, and the statue of the Madonna was placed on the main altar of the chapel. The chapel and its surroundings were the property of the St. Martin parish in Bratislava. Pilgrims from the city and the surrounding area arrived daily, but especially on 5 August, on the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Havas. ; The Calvary parish in Bratislava became independent on August 5, 1933. After the festive mass, Dr. Lajos Okánik, the parish priest of the city and canon protonotary, handed over the leadership of this new parish to the Franciscan provincial, P. Manszvét Olaovszki, on behalf of the administrator of Nagyszombat. For a while, the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Havas served as the parish church. In the years 1943-1948, the new parish church was built on the site of the demolished Mary Chapel, built in 1824, according to the plans of the architects Fuchs and Vécsey. On October 3, 1948, Dr. Ambrus Lazik consecrated it in the presence of a large number of clergy and the faithful. This church had a 50 m high tower (it has now been demolished), is 45 m long, 19 m wide, a modern building with three naves. Above its main altar and sanctuary, the old statue of the Virgin Mary is magnificent. Mary crowned with the infant Jesus. The decoration of the sanctuary is a monumental mosaic: Ecce mater tua! This is the work of the academic painter Simkovics. ; Below on the hillside is the Lourdes Grotto in the Deep Road. Its niche and area are decorated with magnolias and silver pines. It was originally a quarry for extracting stone for the chapels. In 1892, Countess Ilona Szapáry transformed the quarry with the help of the Bratislava faithful. The Lourdes statue was donated by the workers of the textile factory. The Deep Road shrine, together with the Calvary Hill shrine, is a very visited shrine for the Bratislava faithful. The quarry wall is full of marble tablets of gratitude (3906 pieces). Documents engraved in these marbles can be read in Slovak, German, Hungarian, Latin, etc. languages, especially from the period of World War I and II. The shrine of Bratislava - Mélykút can be reached by rail and road. Its main feast is every Marian feast and Marian day.