If a title was awarded to Europe’s most pilgrim nation, it would probably go to Slovaks, one in five of whom took part in organised pilgrimages on the first Sunday of July alone. More than 600,000 braved soaring Central European temperatures to reach the Marian shrine of Levoca, whose Marianska Hora sanctuary dates from the thirteenth century. On the same day, a national pilgrimage to Nitra was led by the nuncio, Archbishop Mario Giordana, and attended by government leaders, including pre