pilgrimages

Places of pilgrimages are the places where sins were forgiven after performing the activities defined by the catholic church. The believer who visited the defined church or place of pilgrimage and performed the obligatory activities there (confession, receiving the sacrament, praying...etc) gained a certain number of indulgencies.

Christians went to pilgrimage to Jerusalem after Christ's death, but the real boom of pilgrimages was the 4th century, during Empror Constantin the Great's reign. In course of the centuries the places of pilgrimage gradually increased. In the honour of martyrs people visited their tombs and asked for thier help to salvation. Besides the Holy Land the most popular places of pilgrimage were Rome with the tombs of Peter, Paul and other martyrs, and Compostella in Spain with the tomb of Apostle St James. Hungarian pilgrims went to Rome and the German Aachen in great numbers. Hungarian places of pilrimage were Székesfehérvár with St Stephen and St Emeric's tomb and Várad with St Ladislaus's tomb, and the from the 14th century Hermit St Paul's tomb at Budaszentlőrinc.

CSE