Our Lady of Altötting

**Our Lady of Altötting** (German: *Unsere Liebe Frau von Altötting*, also known as the *Schwarze Madonna* or Black Madonna) is one of the most venerated Marian images in German-speaking Europe. The 66 cm statue, carved from linden wood around 1330 in the Upper Rhine region, stands at the heart of Germany's oldest and most important Marian pilgrimage site. The devotion to Our Lady of Altötting began dramatically in 1489 when a three-year-old boy fell into the Mörnbach stream and drowned. His grief-stricken mother carried his lifeless body to the small chapel and laid him before the image of the Virgin Mary, pleading for his life. Before the assembled faithful, the child miraculously revived. The following year, another child crushed beneath a cart was similarly restored to life through Mary's intercession. The statue's characteristic dark color comes both from the natural aging of the wood and from centuries of candle soot that has darkened Mary's face and hands. Since 1518, the Madonna has been dressed in precious robes called *Gnadenröckln* (robes of grace), originally fashioned from the wedding gowns of Bavarian princesses. The Elector Maximilian I donated the scepter and crown that adorn her. On September 11, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI placed his episcopal ring—an amethyst given to him by his siblings upon his ordination as Archbishop of Munich in 1977—on the Madonna's scepter as a sign of his devotion. ## Feast Days **August 15 – Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary** – The principal feast at Altötting, marked by candlelit processions around the Kapellplatz. **September 8 – Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary** – A special solemnity when, according to tradition, a ray of sunlight illuminates the face of the miraculous image through a small chapel window.