The House of the Virgin Mary around Ephesus City
According to Christian belief, the Virgin Mary may have spent her last days in this house which was erected on the slope of Bulbul Mountain. Indeed, she may have come to the area together with Saint John, who spent several years in the area to spread Christianity. Before Jesus was crucified Apostle John brought the Virgin Mary to Ephesus, because Jesus entrusted her to John’s care (John 19:26-27), and St. John wanted to spread Christianity in Ephesus whose people believed believing the goddess Artemis. However, the Virgin Mary preferred a remote place around Ephesus rather than living in the center where people believed believing paganism as her son died on the way of God.
Foundation History of Virgin Mary House
One of the other histories about the Virgin Mary’s House starts with a small girl who was a nun later in a Catholic church. The German nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich who had lived about two hundred years ago had some holly visions about Mary’s life and spiritually connected with the Virgin Mary by going into trances. She was whispering in a different language. As no one could understand her, author Clemens Brentano was sent to visit Emmerich who could understand her to transcribe the visions she reported. After Emmerich’s death, Brentano published a book based on his transcriptions of her reported visions called “The Life of Virgin Mary”.
Some details in the book interested the archeologist. She mentioned that Mary’s House was situated on the hill where see visible from the hillside. Archaeologists have examined the area and found its foundation with a three-room cross shape dated 1st century AD. After Paul VI who was the first pope to visit this place in the 1960s visited Mary’s House a small church was built on the foundation of the house. Later, in the 1980s, during his visit, Pope John-Paul II declared the Shrine of the Virgin Mary a pilgrimage place for Christians.
The House of the Virgin Mary serves as a church that is visited by Christians as well as Muslims who know Mary as the mother of one of their prophets.
