Basilica of Máriabesnyő

Pest · Ungern · Church

From the rubble the builder lifted an eleven-centimetre ivory Madonna. Overnight the wasteland became a place of pilgrimage. Nobody has explained how it survived.

Where Máriabesnyő stands there was nothing in the eighteenth century but ruins of a vanished village. When Count Antal Grassalkovich had the ground cleared for a chapel, the builder János Fidler struck something in the rubble: an eleven-centimetre Madonna of ivory, offering her heart to the child. That it lay unharmed beneath collapsed walls for centuries was enough. Word of the wonder spread, pilgrims came in such numbers that the count had to build both an upper and a lower church, and the Capuchins brought home a metre-high cedarwood image of the Virgin from Loreto. Pilgrims still descend into the dark lower church, and the small ivory figure is kept as the heart of the shrine. The wonder is still marked each year with a pilgrimage to the hill above Gödöllő.

FAQ

Where is Basilica of Máriabesnyő located?

Basilica of Máriabesnyő is in Pest, Ungern.

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