Sankt Andrä im Lavanttal

Photos from the website of the diocese

Copy of Black Madonna of Loreto, Italy

In the Basilica Maria Loreto, in St. Andrä 101, 9433 St. Andrä, Austria

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. It had become too small to hold the streams of pilgrims seeking the protection of the Black Madonna and it seems that the new bishop of the diocese wanted a more worthy church for his masses.

Besides Maria Luggau, this basilica of the Black Madonna is the most significant pilgrimage shrine in the Carinthia (Kärnten) region of Austria. When Emperor Josef II “reformed” Austria in the 18th century and outlawed pilgrimages, they ceased for more than half a century. But in the second half of the 19th century there was a new springtime for pilgrims. Up to eighty thousand pilgrims annually received communion in St. Andrä. In modern times those numbers dwindled, but lately more pilgrims seek out their Dark Mother again.

Photos from the website of the diocese