Apparition
Apparitions Reported at Licheń (Our Lady of Sorrows, Queen of Poland)
Private revelation · Licheń Stary, Diocese of Włocławek, Poland, 1850
In 1850 and 1852 the shepherd Mikołaj Sikatka reported apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the woods of Grablin near Licheń, calling the people to penance and the Rosary and foretelling a time of trial; a cholera epidemic swept the district soon after, and the small image of the Sorrowful Mother, Queen of Poland became a centre of pilgrimage. The Church has approved and fostered the cult without issuing a juridical judgement on the apparitions themselves.
Background
The image at Licheń had been found in the forest by Tomasz Kłossowski, a soldier wounded at Leipzig in 1813. It was solemnly transferred to Licheń in 1852 before a great crowd of pilgrims. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński crowned the image in 1967, and the enormous basilica raised at Licheń in the 1990s and 2000s, entrusted to the Marian Fathers, received the title of minor basilica in 2005. What the Church has approved here is the veneration of Our Lady of Sorrows, Queen of Poland — the apparitions have never been the object of a formal decree.
Location
Licheń Stary, Diocese of Włocławek
Country
Poland
Approved status
Private revelation
Year of apparition
1850
Visionaries
- Mikołaj Sikatka
Message highlights
A call to penance, to the Rosary and to the reform of life.
Subject
marian
Decision year
1967
Content subtype
unapproved_apparition
Decision authority
Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński, Primate of Poland, by the canonical coronation of the image of Our Lady of Licheń