The European Continent

The Christian roots of the European continent can be traced back to the early centuries of Christian history, sprung up from the Holy Land. Europe was the first continent to be transformed by the Gospel. The largest number of Marian shrines in the world can be found there. Not a single part of Europe is without, at the very least, a dozen shrines dedicated to the Virgin Mary: there are so many it's difficult to count them all. Some countries even have thousands of shrines, some famous, others simply known locally...

Europe has exerted a worldwide influence, during its long history, by spreading the Christian civilization. In fact, the majority of the missionaries that have evangelized around the world up to the twenty-first century have come from Europe. Many Marian doctors have also been European (i.e. St Alphonsus Liguori, St Bernard of Clairvaux and St Louis Grignion de Montfort).

Throughout its long Christian history Europe has been visited by the Virgin Mary many times. Since the eighteenth century, this continent has witnessed great Marian apparitions that have had global significance: Fatima, Lourdes, the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal in Paris, or Banneux in Belgium, just to name a few.

At the beginning of the twentieth century in particular, this continent of "old Christianity" went through a sorry period of dubious philosophers and horrible fratricidal wars, which largely contributed to the de-Christianization of many of its people.

However, by the late twentieth century, a great spiritual rebirth was initiated in the Church by the younger generations, especially under the pontificate of the Polish Pope John Paul II, one of the greatest Marian popes in the history of the Church, who not only consecrated his reign, but the entirety of humankind of the third millennium, in which we have now entered, to the Holy Virgin Mary, with this motto:

"Totus Tuus"! (All Yours!)

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