The Cistertian abbey in Vina is a beautiful monastery for Trappist contemplative monks that welcomes lay people for retreats. It was founded in 1955 by Thomas Merton’s monastic community…

The Black Madonna of Austin, Texas was comissioned around 2005 by an African priest of the predominantely black Holy Cross Catholic parish with strong black activist roots in that city. She was sculpted by the white artist Jim Thomas.

The chapel was built from 1697 to 1699 as a pilgrimage church in honor of Our Lady of Einsiedeln. At some point, in order to spread devotion to the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln…

In 1766, the parish chronicle relates that the „Black Madonna of Kaltenleutgeben“ was sculpted by a holy hermit in Altötting. He touched his faithful copy to the original in order to absorb…

The son of the earl, who built the copy of the Holy House of Loreto just outside of Klagenfurt on the Maria Loretto Peninsula, had this funeral chapel built for his family in the cathedral in 1660/61…

Klagenfurt is the capital of the state Carinthia, (Kärnten). In 1652 Earl Johann Andreas von Rosenberg had a castle built on what was then an island in Lake Wörther…

Our Dear Lady of Kötschach seems to be the only original Black Madonna in Austria. All the others are copies of the Black Madonnas the Austrians hold most dear…

In the church St Katharina, Langenzersdorf. This copy of the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln, Switzerland, was installed in 1708.

Austria has not just many copies of the Black Madonna of Loreto, but a whole village named after her! It was built in the 17th century to support a monastery, which in turn was built to honor…

The House of Habsburg, which held the throne of the Holy Roman Empire from 1438 – 1740 and ruled Austria till 1918, spread the Loreto cult all over its empire…

45 minutes South of Salzburg. According to a book on local churches, this statue is yet another copy of the Black Madonna of Loreto…

In the heart of Salzburg, just a few blocks from Mozart’s house, lies the convent named Maria Loreto and dedicated to the Black Madonna of Loreto in 1637…

Before this basilica was built in the year 1683, during the second Turkish occupation of Vienna, there was a little Loreto chapel in Sankt Andrä.

Commonly Black Madonnas are associated with sacred springs, but this one outdoes them all: her chapel was erected over 3 sacred springs! It was donated by a local from St. Veit…

The House of Habsburg, which held the throne of the Holy Roman Empire from 1438 – 1740 and ruled Austria till 1918, spread the Loreto cult all over its empire…

A 17th century “copy” of Our Lady of Loreto in the Paulaner Church, in the Paulanergasse 6, 1040 Vienna, brought from Loreto, Italy.

It’s a beautiful copy of the Black Madonna of Loreto in a beautiful church, but nobody has anything to say about her.

A copy of Our Lady of Czestochowa, the “Queen of Poland”

n 1664 the Augustinian monk Jacob Willemart (1626-1697) traveled from Brugge to Spain. Nobody knows why, but the good relations between Spanish and Belgian Augustinian communities must have played a role…

In 1744 sailors threw this statue into the river Senne, but instead of sinking to the bottom it was later found floating on a piece of turf…