It is a sanctuary of great renown in Poland, devoted to the worship of the Virgin Mary. The sanctuary is located in Wielkopolska in a village called Licheń - 10 km far from the capital of the province - Konin.

The history of the sanctuary dates back to 1813, the times when `the battle of nations` took place near Leipzig. Polish soldiers were fighting under Napoleon, among them Tomasz Kłossowski who got seriously hurt. Facing death,he began an earnest invocation to the Holy Virgin begging her not to let him die on the foreign land. According to the legend, Our Lady revealed to him in the light of the crimson sun setting over the battlefield. She was wearing the crown, an amaranth dress and a golden mantle, and hugging a white eangle. The Virgin Mary comforted the soldier and foretold he would recover and return to his motherland. She also told him to find a picture of her and place it in public in his homeland. The healed solidier returned to his home near Licheń. Year after year he wandered about various sanctuaries seeking out the miraculous image of Out Lady. In 1836 he eventually found in Lgota - a vilage on his way back from a pilgrimage to Częstochowa. Initially he placed the portrait in his own house, and then hang it up on an old pine-tree in the nearby forest - puszcza grąblińska.

In 1850 the Holy Virgin revealed to a sheperd Mikołaj Sikatka who was pasturing cattle neat the portrait hung in the forest. In her proclamation Our Lady summoned people to reformation, to break with the intemperance and profligacy. She exhorted them to tell their beads and reminded of the celebration of Sunday, and asked priests to celebrate propitiatory services. She also postulated for moving her portrait to a more dignified place. She promised that those who earnestly prayed before it would escape death during the plague which was to be the punichment for the absence of reformation of the sinners. The Holy Virgin predicted the formation of the sanctuary and the monastery in Licheń, from which her glory would flow. Mikołaj, the poor sheperd started to expound Our Lady`s message but he was persecuted and imprisoned by the invasive Russian authorities. At first people wouldn`t beiieve the sheperd`s. Only two years later - when, according to the Virgin Mother`s prophecy, the cholera epidemic came and decimated people, did they remember her warning conveyed by the sheperd from Gršblin. Then people thronged to the Holy Virgin to kneel before her portrait and tell their beads, to the place where the sick recovered and the dying recuperated. Thus the cult of Our Lady in the miraculous image orginated.

The revelation war examined by a special episcopial committee. At the request of the parish - priest, Florian Kosiński, the committee decided to move the portrait to the parish church in Licheń. The celebration took place on 29 September, 1852 and it was strongly attended by priesthood and about 80,000 pilgrims.

The orgin of the the Sanctuary in Licheń dates from those times. Despite the prosecution it has been developing to become famous not only in Poland but all over the world as well. Till 1939, 3 thousand various acts of grace, including many miraculous recoveries were recorded.
During the World War II both the church and the presbytery were turned into a seat of the Youth Nazi Organization. At the right moment the portrait was removed from the church and hidden, and thereby it escaped destruction.

In 1949 the parish in Licheń was assummed by a Marist Monastery. Marianists started restoring the sanctuary from the war damage. It was not easy, for the communist authorities tried to prevent it - through the criminal court, lawsuits, perseccution and constant impediment of pilgrims. However, the year 1967 came. On the Feast of Assumption of the Holy Virgin, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, the Primate of Poland crowned the miraculous image of Our Lady of Licheń, in the presence of the Ordinary of the Wrocławska Diocese - Bishop Antoni Pawłowski, many other bishops, hundreds of priests, monks und nuns, and about 150,000 worshippers.
The number of pilgrims has been increasing ever since. Some statisticfrom 1996 give an idea of the quanitity.

• 650,000 of the Holy Communions given
• 7,390 coach pilgrimages registered
• 3080 Gast - Priester konzelbrierten die Messen.

3,000 quest - officiating priests registered. The foregoing figures are not complete for not all of the groups of pilgrims register themselves in the celebrants` registry. No one is able to count individual pilgrims arriving at the sanctuary. It has been estimated that the place is visited by about one million pilgrims a year. Among them there are poeple who come here each year, eg.: all - Polisch pilgrimage of village administrators and folk circles, pilgrimage of the civil servants and educationat workers. There are also diocesan meetings of young adilts, meetings of anonymous alcoholics, retreats of secular diocesan catechists, retreats for handicapped people, winter and summer retreats for young adults, and many others. During their stay in Licheń, the majority of pilgrims go to confession, for the most important purpose of theSanctuary in Licheń seems to be reconciliation witch God.
Due pilgrims` generosity, a new Sanctuary of Out Lady of Licheń is beging built as a thanksgiving and propitiation votive offering for the 2000 th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ.

Although the area is picturesque, Licheń is not a touristic place. It is a place of cogitation and man`s spiritual revival, earnest, faithful and trusting prayers said by pilgrims to the Holy Virgin - the healer of our body and soul.

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Licheń