Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

"Our Lady of Bzommar: The clandestine Rosary of the Armenian people"

Bzommar (Lebanon) (1749)

In the mountains northeast of Beirut lies Bzommar, seat of the Patriarchate of Armenian Catholics and its Marian shrine-monastery. There, Our Lady of Bzommar, also known in Armenian Catholic tradition as Our Lady of the Rosary of Bzommar, is venerated. It is a key spiritual and cultural center for Armenian Catholics throughout the diaspora, in full communion with Rome.

The monastery was established in the 18th century, around 1749, as the seat of the patriarch and mother house of the Armenian Catholic Fathers congregation. From early on, a much-loved Marian image was venerated there, and the site became a national shrine, especially after the Armenian persecutions and genocide of 1915-1917, as a spiritual refuge and symbol of Mary's maternal protection over her people.

It is important to make a distinction. The founding of the monastery and patriarchate in the 18th century, its role in the formation of the Armenian Catholic clergy and in the organization of the diaspora, and the veneration of Our Lady of Bzommar as the center of that spirituality are documented facts. However, the exact origin of the image (which some versions link to Cilicia or Aleppo, or depict it accompanying communities in their flight) and the accounts of miraculous interventions in wars belong to pious tradition, without a single, definitive critical version. There is no canonically investigated list of physical miracles in the manner of Lourdes or Fatima: the great "miracle" of Bzommar is the perseverance of the Armenian people in faith and hope.

Here, the connection to the Rosary is clearer and more beautiful than in other shrines. The Rosary has been one of the forms of Marian devotion promoted by the monastery, and various writings explicitly mention Our Lady of the Rosary of Bzommar. Although there is no decree formally declaring the shrine "of the Rosary," the practice of the Rosary is intrinsically linked to this devotion and forms part of its spiritual identity.