The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Ludźmierz in

Ludźmierz Ludźmierz is a village in Poland in the Lesser Poland voivodeship, in the county of Nowy Targ. Ludźmierz is the oldest village in Podhale and is located about 85 kilometres south of Kraków. It lies approximately west of Nowy Targ and south o ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

is home to Our Lady of Ludźmierz, known as the Shepherdess of

Podhale Podhale (literally "below the mountain pastures") is Poland's southernmost region, sometimes referred to as the "Polish Highlands". The Podhale is located in the foothills of the Tatra range of the Carpathian mountains. It is the most famous ...

or in Polish ''Gaździna Podhala''. The cult of Our Lady of Ludźmierz is strongly identified with the Góral people who live in the surrounding

Tatra Mountains The Tatra Mountains (), Tatras, or Tatra (''Tatry'' either in Slovak () or in Polish () - ''plurale tantum''), are a series of mountains within the Western Carpathians that form a natural border between Slovakia and Poland. They are the high ...

History

is the oldest Catholic parish in

. Its history stretches back to the 13th century. In 1234 Teodor Gryfita began raising a simple wooden church with a shingled roof and three altars in

, after obtaining permission from the bishop of

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

. To encourage settlement in the uninhabited area, Gryfita brought in

Cistercian Monks The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint B ...

from France, Italy and nearby Jędrzejów. A simple wooden monastery was erected soon after, along with a number of other buildings used in agriculture. These buildings which burnt down in 1796, had been practically abandoned since 1245 due to the high frequency of raids by bands of

Tatars The Tatars ()Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary is an umbrella term for different

and thieves and the monks moved to nearby Szczyrzyc. However the

Cistercians The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

ministered to the parish in

until 1824, when it came under the care of Diocesan priests. In 1869-77 the old wooden church was dismantled, and in its place the current

Neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

edifice was raised, and the

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

altar with the figurine of Our Lady of Ludźmierz was moved into the new church.

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

visited the sanctuary in 1997. In 2001 the church was declared a

Minor Basilica In the Catholic Church, a basilica is a designation given by the Pope to a church building. Basilicas are distinguished for ceremonial purposes from other churches. The building need not be a basilica in the architectural sense (a rectangular ...

Papal prophecy

Perhaps the most well-known story regarding the shrine is an incident during the

Canonical Coronation A canonical coronation ( la, Coronatio Canonica) is a pious institutional act of the pope, duly expressed in a bull, in which the pope bestows the right to impose an ornamental crown, a diadem or an aureole to an image of Christ, Mary or Josep ...

of the statue by

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **'' Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **'' Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, t ...

Stefan Wyszyński Stefan Wyszyński (3 August 1901 – 28 May 1981) was a Polish people, Polish prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as the bishop of Lublin from 1946 to 1948, List of bishops and archbishops of Warsaw, archbishop of Warsaw and archbishop o ...

on 15 August 1963, attended by the future

Bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

of the

Archdiocese of Kraków In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...

. The statue accidentally slipped during the ceremony and the future pontiff caught the

scepter A sceptre is a staff or wand held in the hand by a ruling monarch as an item of royal or imperial insignia. Figuratively, it means royal or imperial authority or sovereignty. Antiquity Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia The '' Was'' and other ...

which had fallen out of the statue's grasp, a scene that was later interpreted as a prophecy of the young bishop's future selection as

Pope The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...

Statue of Our Lady of Ludźmierz

The figurine of Our Lady of Ludźmierz, which has drawn throngs of pilgrims since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

was originally placed in one of the church's side altars, and it wasn't until 1776 that the statue made its way into the main altar. The statue of Our Lady of Ludźmierz is thought to be about 600 years old. The wooden statue itself is about 125 cm in height, and a replica is situated next to the "miraculous spring" next to the sanctuary. Multiple copies of the figure have spread all over the world, from the Pfarrkirche of St. Johannes Baptist in Baindt to the church of St. Mary of Częstochowa in Cicero. Most of the spread in devotion to Our Lady of Ludźmierz can be traced back to the outmigration of the Góral community out of their native

Carpathian The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretches ...

homeland.

Medieval legend

There is a medieval legend from about 1400 that refers to the Shepherdess of Podhale or the ''Gaździna Podhala'' which refers to a Hungarian merchant on his way to

Nowy Targ Nowy Targ (Officially: ''Royal Free city of Nowy Targ'', Yiddish: ''Naymark'', Goral Dialect: ''Miasto'') is a town in southern Poland, in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. It is located in the Orava-Nowy Targ Basin at the foot of the Gorce Moun ...

who after having lost his way in the nearby swamps, was miraculously led out by a mysterious lady to the church. When he understood that this mysterious figure had been Mary, the mother of Jesus, he attempted to kneel to give thanks in prayer when a miraculous spring burst forth. He pledged to commission a statue that would depict Mary as he'd seen her and bring it back to the church {{DEFAULTSORT:Ludzmierz, Our Lady of Gorals Shrines to the Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Poland Polish folklore Marian apparitions The Most Holy Virgin Mary, Queen of Poland Basilica churches in Poland Nowy Targ County Churches in Lesser Poland Voivodeship