A Schoenstatt Shrine is a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

shrine and a characteristic building of the

Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement The Apostolic Movement of Schoenstatt () is a Catholic Marian movement founded in Germany in 1914 by Fr Joseph Kentenich, who saw the movement as a means of spiritual renewal for the Catholic Church. The movement is named after the small loc ...

founded in 1914 by Josef Kentenich in

Vallendar Vallendar () is a town in the district Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the right bank of the Rhine, approx. 4 km north-east of Koblenz. Vallendar is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipa ...

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; ; ; ) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the sixteen states. Mainz is the capital and largest city. Other cities are ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. In 2025, there are 202 Schoenstatt Shrines in the world, the most famous being the Original (Schoenstatt) Shrine (German: Urheiligtum) in Vallendar. The Shrine is where the

Blessed Virgin Mary Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Saint Joseph, Joseph and the mother of Jesus. She is an important figure of Christianity, venerated under titles of Mary, mother of Jesus, various titles such as Perpetual virginity ...

is invoked for protection and influence, and is a visual icon for devotion within the movement.

History

Father Josef Kentenich was the spiritual director of a

minor seminary A minor seminary or high school seminary is a secondary day or boarding school created for the specific purpose of enrolling teenage boys who have expressed interest in becoming Priesthood (Catholic Church), Catholic priests. They are generally ...

of the

Pallottine Fathers The Pallottines, officially named the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (), abbreviated SAC, is a Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right for men in the Roman Catholic Church, founded in 1835 by the Roman Catholic priest Saint Vincent Pal ...

preparing missionaries for Africa. In April 1914, a Marian

sodality In Christian theology, a sodality, also known as a syndiakonia, is a form of the Universal Church organized in a specialized, task-oriented society, as opposed to a local, diocesan body (a ''modality''). In English, the term ''sodality'' is most ...

was formed at the seminary, and the superior offered the sodality the Chapel of Saint Michael near the school. Father Kentenich was inspired by the work of

Bartolo Longo Bartolo Longo, TOSD (February 10, 1841 – October 5, 1926) was an Italian lawyer and former Satanic priest who returned to the Catholic faith and became a Dominican tertiary, dedicating his life to the Rosary and the Virgin Mary. He was even ...

in creating the Shrine to Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii, and wished to create a shrine to the Virgin Mary at Schoenstatt. A central point in the movement's dynamics and faith is the devotion to the Original Shrine where the movement started, and of which there are around 200 similar replicas around the world.Almanzar, Christen. "Devotion to Mary as Liberation: A Case Study of the Marian Spirituality of Schoenstatt." Marian Studies 64.1 (2013): 220-247.

Notes

Shrines to the Virgin Mary Marian devotions Roman Catholic shrines in Germany Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement {{Germany-RC-church-stub