marian anniversaries     june

June 27

Pani Kujaw, Markowice, Strzelno, Mogilno, Kuyavia-Pomerania, Poland

Located in north central Poland, the Sanctuary of the Queen of Love and Peace, Our Lady of Kuyavia, is known for a statue of the Virgin and Child dated c1475, kept by the Norbertine Sisters until 1630, when Lord Markowicz brought it to his lands during a cholera epidemic. As there was no church in the area, the statue took residence in the palace of the heirs, Andrew and Helen Bardzkich, who made its room into a chapel where they prayed ceaselessly for their sick daughter Marianne. In thanks for her complete recovery, they built a wooden church in 1634. In 1642, they brought Carmelite monks to take care of the shrine and its pilgrims. In 1710, a brick church was built, remodeled in stone in full baroque style in 1777, and dedicated to the Visitation of Our Lady. After Prussian authorities closed the Carmelite monastery in 1825, the shrine stayed active, and in 1921 the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate took over its care. But in 1939 the Nazis closed it and sent many of the Oblates to concentration camps. Just as the invaders were about to send the statue to a museum in Berlin, two Oblate Brothers broke into the church and took the image into hiding. Stormtroopers hunted it with dogs to no avail. After the war, the statue and the Oblates returned to the shrine. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński crowned the statue on June 27, 1965, bestowing the title Queen of Love and Peace, Lady of Kuyavia. In 2013, the Oblates decided to leave Markowice. Now run by the Archdiocese of Gniezno, the shrine's main pilgrimage day is the first Sunday in July, corresponding to the old Feast of the Visitation on July 2.

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