The Image and the Cult: The Icon of Joyful Lady of Bač

Abstract

This paper focuses on the development of the cult of the late 17th century icon of the Virgin with the Child, known as Joyful Lady of Bač, from its origins to the present day. Painted in the manner of late Byzantine art, and preserved in the Franciscan monastery of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin in Bač, this Italo-Cretan icon was and still is highly venerated by local Slavic population of both Catholic and Orthodox denominations. At one point this icon also started to be venerated as the icon of Our Lady of Gradovrh, miraculous icon from the Franciscan monastery in Gradovrh near Tuzla in Bosnia. Through this case study, the paper aims at highlighting the fact that in the areas, where during many centuries population of both Catholic and Orthodox denominations lived together, the ways of veneration of holy images differed little among them in both form and essence.