The House of Virgin Mary

North of Ephesus, 8 km (5 miles) from the town of Seltzuk, high up Mt. Koresos (Biulbuldag), the legend has it that the House, where Virgin Mary spent her last years, is located. It is in fact on a terrace with fantastic view over the sea and the islands of the Aegean.

A German nun, Katerina Emmerich (1774-1824), had a vision of the alledged House of Virgin Mary, without ever having set foot on this part of the world! Father Poulin, head of the College of Smyrna, read the book with the nun's description in 1890 and organized a search expedition to check the validity of the information. A year later the ruins of a house were discovered; the fact that the local Christian community used to gather here every August 15th, to celebrate the Dormition, and that the coal found in the fireplace was scientifically cheched as being of the 1st century AD, persuaded the Roman-Catholic Church to decide in favor of the validity of this information.
Preservation works that followed built the demolished house again, keeping intact the part of the foundations that were still in place. In one of our photos, the dividing line between the older part of the building and the newer addition is marked by a red line. These works created a cross-like convent, served by nuns of the Roman-Catholic Church, as our photos show.
Photos by: Nick Bougas

The House of Virgin Mary: Informative Sign Sorry, but it is all in Greek! If you know Greek, the same sign is enlarged, shown in two halves, in the following photos.	The House of Virgin Mary: Informative Sign
The House of Virgin Mary: Informative Sign	The House of Virgin Mary
The House of Virgin Mary	The House of Virgin Mary
The House of Virgin Mary The dividing red line between the foundations of the 1st century and the newer reconstruction	The House of Virgin Mary: The Statue of Our Lady in a niche
The House of Virgin Mary: Roman-Catholic nuns serving the Convent	The House of Virgin Mary: The Fountain
The House of Virgin Mary: The wall of the wishes A small piece of cloth is fastened on the wall, for the wish of the faithful to be fulfilled. This custom is followed also elsewhere in Christian churches in Turkey, Greek-Orthodox included, e.g. on the Islands of Pringiponissia, in Bosporus.