Our Lady of Nsimalen

Marian vocation of Nsimalen (near Yaoundé) (Archdiocese of Yaoundé)
Recognized by the Church

In the late 1980s and in the 1990s, the news of the alleged apparitions of the Virgin to a secular woman - in some narrations, Juliana Makabingui - was spread in Nsimalen near Yaoundé, with messages focused on conversion, prayer and peace. The archdiocese erected a Marian sanctuary there, today recognized as a point of pilgrimage. In 2017 the Archbishop of Yaoundé convened a Marian year for his archdiocese with a mass in this sanctuary, stressing its importance as a place of prayer and conversion.

Main data

Origin and history

In the late 1980s and in the 1990s, the news of the alleged apparitions of the Virgin to a secular woman - in some narrations, Juliana Makabingui - was spread in Nsimalen near Yaoundé, with messages focused on conversion, prayer and peace. The archdiocese erected a Marian sanctuary there, today recognized as a point of pilgrimage. In 2017 the Archbishop of Yaoundé convened a Marian year for his archdiocese with a mass in this sanctuary, stressing its importance as a place of prayer and conversion.

The image and the sanctuary

El santuario de Nsimalen está reconocido y promovido por la arquidiócesis como lugar de culto y peregrinación, en una situación que las fuentes describen como de «semi aprobación»: el culto mariano está permitido, pero las apariciones como tales no han sido aprobadas oficialmente con un «constat de supernaturalitate», por lo que se pide prudencia.

Sponsorship and coronation

diocesan Marian Sanctuary with unfully approved apparitions; devotion is allowed without recognition of the supernatural character of visions. No canonical coronation.

Party and devotion

Pilgrimage is organized at the great Marian parties, especially on August 15 and December 8; the date of a party of its own is not officially recorded. The Catholic press reports testimonies of physical cures, conversions and family reconciliations attributed to the intercession of the Virgin, with exvotes left in the sanctuary - crutches, photographs, plaques of thanks - all of this on the level of popular devotion.

Link to the Rosary

The messages associated with Nsimalen insist on prayer and conversion; the pilgrims come to pray the Rosary before the Virgin, conferring her diseases, her families and the peace of her people.