A shrine to the Virgin Mary, or Marian shrine, is a shrine marking an apparition or other miracle ascribed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, or a site on which is centered a historically strong Marian devotion. Such locales are often the destinations of Christian pilgrimages.
The term Black Madonna or Black Virgin tends to refer to statues or paintings in Western Christendom of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Infant Jesus, where both figures are depicted with dark skin. Examples of the Black Madonna can be found both in Catholic and Orthodox countries.
The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is a Catholic Marian shrine and pilgrimage site dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes in the town of Lourdes, Hautes-Pyrénées, France. The sanctuary includes several religious buildings and monuments around the grotto of Massabielle, the place where the events of the Lourdes apparitions occurred in 1858, among them are three basilicas, the Basilica of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, the Rosary Basilica and the Basilica of St. Pius X, respectively known as the upper, lower and underground basilica.
The Basilica of Santa María de Guadalupe, officially called Insigne y Nacional Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe is a basilica of the Catholic Church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary in her invocation of Our Lady of Guadalupe, located at the foot of the Hill of Tepeyac in the Gustavo A. Madero borough of Mexico City. It belongs to the Primate Archdiocese of Mexico through the Guadalupana Vicariate, which since November 4, 2018, is in the care of Monsignor Efraín Hernández Díaz, who has the title of general and episcopal vicar of Guadalupe and abbot of the basilica.
Marian devotions are external pious practices directed to the person of Mary, mother of Jesus, by members of certain Christian traditions. They are performed in Catholicism, High Church Lutheranism, Anglo-Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, but generally rejected in other Christian denominations.
Our Lady of Walsingham is a title of Mary, mother of Jesus venerated by Catholics and High Church Anglicans associated with the Marian apparitions to Richeldis de Faverches, a pious English noblewoman, in 1061 in the village of Walsingham in Norfolk, England. Lady Richeldis had a structure built named "The Holy House" in Walsingham which later became a shrine and place of pilgrimage.
Our Lady of Lourdes is a title of the Virgin Mary. She is venerated under this title by the Roman Catholic Church due to her apparitions that occurred in Lourdes, France. The first apparition of 11 February 1858, of which Bernadette Soubirous told her mother that a "Lady" spoke to her in the cave of Massabielle while she was gathering firewood with her sister and a friend. Similar apparitions of the "Lady" were reported on 18 occasions that year, until the climax revelation in which she introduced herself as: "the Immaculate Conception". On 18 January 1862, the local Bishop of Tarbes Bertrand-Sévère Laurence endorsed the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes.
Our Lady of the Rosary, also known as Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, is a Marian title.
The Church of the Virgin Mary in Haret Zuweila is the oldest church in the district of Haret Zuweila, near the Fatimid section of Cairo. It was probably built around the AD 10th century, though it is first mentioned in writing in the early 12th century on the occasion of the consecration of the new bishop of Cairo under Macarius' Papacy. The Church of the Virgin Mary in Haret Zuweila was the seat of the Coptic Orthodox Pope of Alexandria from c. 1400 AD to 1520 AD.
Christianity has a strong tradition of pilgrimages, both to sites relevant to the New Testament narrative and to sites associated with later saints or miracles.
Catholic Marian churches are religious buildings dedicated to the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary. These churches were built throughout the history of the Catholic Church, and today they can be found on every continent including Antarctica. The history of Marian church architecture tells the unfolding story of the development of Catholic Mariology.
A Lourdes grotto is a replica of the grotto where the Lourdes apparitions occurred in 1858, in the town of Lourdes in France, now part of the sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes. Some Lourdes grottos are almost identical reproductions of the scene of the apparitions, with statues of Our Lady of Lourdes and Bernadette Soubirous in a natural or artificial cave, while others may differ from the original in size, shape or style.
A national shrine is a Catholic church or other sacred place which has met certain requirements and is given this honor by the national episcopal conference to recognize the church's special cultural, historical, and religious significance.
A pilgrimage church is a church to which pilgrimages are regularly made, or a church along a pilgrimage route, like the Way of St. James, that is visited by pilgrims.
The Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, formerly known as The Miraculous Medal Shrine, is at 500 E. Chelten Ave. in the East Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The church now known as the Basilica Shrine was completed by the Congregation of the Mission in 1879 as the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception on the grounds of St. Vincent's Seminary. In 1927, Fr. Joseph Skelly, CM, commissioned the creation of Mary's Central Shrine within the chapel to promote devotion to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, a title of the Virgin Mary originating with her apparitions to Saint Catherine Labouré in Paris in 1830.
