Marienthal The Basilica of Notre-Dame of Marienthal

Around 1240, or 1250 by other accounts, Albert of Haguenau, a knight who had given up the world, built a chapel to Our Lady in the forest near Haguenau and gathered a small community there. Pilgrims have come from all over Alsace to Marienthal, the valley of Mary, ever since.

They pray before two medieval statues, a Virgin and Child and a Pietà, whose dates the sources give differently. Pius IX had the Pietà crowned in 1859, and Leo XIII made the church a minor basilica in 1892.

Albert’s companions followed the Rule of Saint William and were known as Guillelmites. A Gothic church replaced the first sanctuary around 1500, and in 1617 the bishop of Strasbourg entrusted the shrine to the Jesuits, who kept it for 148 years. Stanislas Leszczyński, the deposed king of Poland, then living at Wissembourg, came several times a year between 1720 and 1725 with his daughter Marie, the future queen of France. During the Revolution the statues were hidden at Ottersweier, in Germany, and the pilgrimage went on in secret. In 1863 Charles Morin, city architect of Haguenau, began the present neo-Gothic church, which kept the old church as its choir and was opened in 1865. The Virgin and Child, called Our Lady of Joy, was crowned in 1871. In 2013 Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, the former secretary of John Paul II, gave the shrine a relic of the saint.

Retired priests live in the priests’ house, founded in 1811, and celebrate Mass every day and hear confessions under the rector. The Benedictine Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre have helped to receive pilgrims since 1970. The great pilgrimage is the Assumption. On the evening of August 14 a Mass is followed by a torchlight procession through the streets of Marienthal, and on August 15 there are several Masses and solemn Vespers with a procession. The shrine also names May 1, the Sundays of May and September 15 as its main pilgrimage days.

• The PietàCrowned in 1859.
• Our Lady of JoyThe Virgin and Child, crowned in 1871.
• The choirThe old church, kept as the choir of the basilica begun in 1863.
• The relic of Saint John Paul IIGiven to the shrine in 2013 by Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz.

• Via NativitatisThe Christmas Way, six daysDay VI, Marienthal, then Paris

About half an hour by road from Strasbourg.

• StrasbourgThe Cathedral of Notre-Dame of Strasbourg, about 14 miles as the crow flies
• Mont Sainte-OdileThe Convent of Saint Odile, about 30 miles as the crow flies
• SélestatThe Town of the First Christmas Trees, about 40 miles as the crow flies
• ColmarThe Isenheim Altarpiece, about 53 miles as the crow flies