c. 1500 Almonacid de Toledo, Castiglia (Spain) Visionary: unknown The Virgin appeared asking that a sanctuary be built. Source: Chiron, 1995, 70 and W.A. Christian Jr. Religosidad local en España de Felipe II, Madrid, Nerea , 1991, 103. c. 1500 Dolní Dvonste, Cesky Krumlov, South Bohemia, Czech Republic The story goes that around 1500, Mary appeared to some shepherds here atop a rock, which then split. The gap kept growing; it is said that the world will end when a hay wagon can pass through. In the 1600s, Clarissan nuns built the church of St. Mary of the Snow over the Holy Stone. A nearby chapel houses a healing spring. In 1949 Communist authorities closed the church and repurposed it as a collective farm granary, then as a military warehouse. Its Baroque fittings were looted, its stucco decorations used for target practice, its convent ruined and demolished. Following the 1989 Velvet Revolution, an international effort by German, Austrian, and Czech believer...