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Candlemas, Christian festival beginning on February 2nd in Dubrovnik, 1041. year of tradition. Thanks to the legend of miraculous healing of a child in whose throat a bone had stuck, threatening to choke the child, St. Blasius has become the traditional patron of the laryngeal diseases, and, since recently, the patron of the otolaryngologists, too. The second part of the paper is dedicated to the cult of St. Blasius, which is present in Croatia since the 10th century until present. Venerated all over the country, St. Blasius has been "elected" the heavenly protector of 10 parish communities, as well as of the city and the dioceses of Dubrovnik. Beside pilgrimage and prayers, among many traditional forms of folk piety, a ritual called "grlicenje" has been preserved-a curative and preventive blessing of the throat with crossed candles on the Saint's Day.
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