Our Lady of Fourvière

Marian title of Lyon (Auvernia-Rhódano-Alpes)

La devoción a Our Lady of Fourvière is linked to the religious history of Lyon and to the hill of Fourvière, where tradition places an ancient place of Marian Christian veneration since the Middle Ages. According to the local tradition, with the support of a bull of Inocencio IV, Saint Pothin would have erected there the first oratory in which Mary was invoked in the Galia; this affirmation belongs to the field of the Pious tradition And it doesn't count here as a documented fact.

Main data

Origin and history

La devoción a Our Lady of Fourvière is linked to the religious history of Lyon and to the hill of Fourvière, where tradition places an ancient place of Marian Christian veneration since the Middle Ages. According to the local tradition, with the support of a bull of Inocencio IV, Saint Pothin would have erected there the first oratory in which Mary was invoked in the Galia; this affirmation belongs to the field of the Pious tradition And it doesn't count here as a documented fact.

La documented history of the devotion of the city is clearly fixed in 1643when Lyon was threatened by the plague and the councillors voted to go up every year in procession to Fourvière to ask for the protection of the Virgin. Later, during the French-Prussian war of 1870the salvation of Lyon was also attributed to Mary's intercession, and this new vow consolidated the link between the city and the sanctuary.

The present basilica was built between 1872 y 1896 on the hill that dominates the city. He was raised as a great votive temple in a neo-Byzantine architectural language, and his visible presence on Lyon made Fourvière one of the city's most recognizable religious and urban symbols.

The image and the sanctuary

The advocation is venerated in the Basílica de Notre-Dame de Fourvière, located on the hill of the same name, in Lyon. The present temple is a minor basilica and is part of the monumental heritage of the city. The sources consulted do not contain a sufficiently precise and unambiguous description of a unique "headline image" of this advocation; in Fourvière devotion is concentrated in the whole of the sanctuary and in the Marian image venerated there, so it should not be mixed with other homonymous images of different location.

The present sanctuary is inseparable from the history of Lyon: the hill of Fourvière is associated with the Marian protection of the city from the vote of the 1643, and its 19th century basilica was raised precisely as an expression of gratitude and consecration.

Sponsorship and coronation

Patronage: Our Lady of Fourvière is patron of the the city of Lyon, consecrated to Mary by a cultural-religious tradition linked to the votes of 1643 and to the memory of 1870.

Canon coronation: does not contain a documented canonical coronation in the sources consulted.

Party and devotion

The date most associated with this devotion is the 8 December, day of the Party of Lights (Fête des Lumières) of Lyon, which sinks its roots in the Marian piety of the city and in the history of the sanctuary of Fourvière. Contemporary celebrations combine religious memory, popular gratitude and a strong urban tradition of lighting windows and public spaces.

The devotion to Fourvière has also been linked to pilgrimages and thanksgiving in times of crisis, especially in the face of the plague of 1643 and the cholera of the 19th century according to the devotional tradition collected in some sources. The divulgative references to the influx of pilgrims insist that Fourvière has been a destination very frequented by faithful of different conditions, although the specific figures of visitors do not show with certainty in the sources gathered here.

Link to the Rosary

The sources consulted do not contain a specific and original association of this advocation with a practice of the Rosary other than general Marian devotion. However, for its character as a Marian sanctuary of intercession, gratitude and consecration, Our Lady of Fourvière is fully part of the spiritual climate in which the Rosary accompanies the meditation of the mysteries of Christ with Mary, especially in shrines where repeated and contemplative prayer has historically sustained popular piety.