Our Lady of Settlements

The Black Virgin of Switzerland

In the Benedictine abbey of Einsiedeln one of the oldest and most loved Marian images of Switzerland is venerated, the goal of pilgrims for over a thousand years and stage of the Swiss Jacobeo road.

Origin and history

The origin of the place is attached to the hermit Saint Meinrado, a Benedictine monk who in the ninth century withdrew to that lone forest - from where the name comes Einsiedeln, "hermitage" - with an image of the Virgin. After his death (about 861), the place continued to be of prayer and, in the 10th century, the Benedictine abbey was born which kept the sanctuary.

The tradition of the "Engelweihe" - the consecration of the chapel attributed to the angels - attracted great pilgrimages over the centuries. The image, a gothic size darkened by time, is venerated as the "Black Virgin of Einsiedeln." The sanctuary is also an important stage of the Way of Santiago as it passes through Switzerland.