In 1638, the construction of the Jesuit church of St Vitus began in the centre of Rijeka, on the site of an earlier church of the same name. The Rijeka crucifix, which is venerated as miraculous, is still kept in the church today. It is believed that the miracle happened in 1296, when a citizen of the town, Petar Lončarić, got angry playing a card game in front of the church and threw a stone at the crucifix, which bled. That is why the devotional medals from Rijeka feature the Rijeka Miraculous Crucifix on the obverse side, with a view of the city from the sea in the background. On the reverse, there is a depiction of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, standing in profile, with a Jesuit cap on his head and a book in his hand. In 1796, on the 500th anniversary of the miracle, a great celebration was held in Rijeka, attended by as many as 60,000 pilgrims. Commemorative Rijeka devotional medals with an inscription on the reverse mentioning this event were made for the occasion. All Rijeka medals are oval in shape and cast in bronze, and it is assumed that they were struck in a local workshop.

The Rijeka Miraculous Crucifix also appears in combination with the Virgin Mary of Passau (Mariashilf/Mary Help of Christians) on medals made for the Capuchin pilgrimage shrine of Passau in Southern Bavaria. The shrine became especially popular after the Habsburg victory at Vienna in 1683, and the Passau Virgin began to be celebrated as the protector from the Ottomans.