There are not many Marian sanctuaries in England and Wales, but some have become the goal of interreligious pilgrimages Separated from Rome since the time of Henry VIII in the sixteenth century, the Anglican Church does not boast of the number of Marian sanctuaries as do the other Catholic Churches of Europe. But two sanctuaries have been, for centuries, the constant goal of pilgrimages. The Marian sanctuary of Walsingham in Norfolk attracts some 250,000 pilgrims each year. They come from all the dioceses of England and Wales and also from abroad. In May and July the sanctuary, in eastern England, also hosts a group of 6,000 Tamils and another group of indolakan, two Hindu sects devoted to the Madonna. This sanctuary dates back to 1061 when the Virgin appeared to the noble lady Richeldis de Faverches. After answering her prayer, Our Lady miraculously transported her to Nazareth, showing her the house of the Annunciation and asking her to build one similar to it in Walsingham. In the fourteenth century a chapel was built a mile away from the sanctuary to give pilgrims a moment of rest. In the “Chapel of the Slipper”, as the ancient chapel dedicated to St. Catherine is still called, pilgrims take off their shoes and walk the last stretch of the road bare foot. During the Reformation the sanctuary was destroyed and the statue of the Virgin burned. Pope Leo XIII reopened the sanctuary of Walsingham on 6 February 1897. Devotion soon grew again and both the sanctuary and the holy house were entirely rebuilt. The Anglican Church decided to promote its own Marian devotion after the war, sign of the new ecumenical harmony in relations with Catholics. So the Anglican sanctuary of Our Lady of Walsingham was built by the Anglican vicar of Walsingham, Alfred Hope Patten, in 1931. Today between fifty and a hundred people participate each day in midday Mass in the “Chapel of the Slipper” and each diocese of England and Wales goes there on pilgrimage. The sanctuary of Cardigan in Wales represents a form of Marian devotion dating back to the Middle Ages. A legend recounts that a statue of Mary was found close to the river Teifi where the church of St. Mary’s was built to house it in around 1185. The sanctuary of the Virgin at Cardigan was almost certainly part of the Benedictine monastery that suffered the fate of other Catholic institutions during the Reformation, namely closure and persecution. Devotion to the Virgin was at one time very widespread in Wales. Many places in Wales are called Capel Mair which in gaelic means chapel of Mary and scores of flowers and plants bear Marian names. In 1904 Breton monks, in exile close to Cardigan, revived the sanctuary, giving the name of “Our Lady of Cardigan” to their abbey church. In 1952 Bishop Petit restored the sanctuary, now the goal of pilgrimages from all over Great Britain.
