The Story of Notre-Dame de Tongre

«The miraculous apparition of Notre-Dame de Tongre was visibly brought by angels through a white, bright cloud into the gardens of the castle of Sir Hector, Lord of the place, at about 11 o’clock in the evening of the first day of February, in the year 1081”.

The statue was brought in a procession into the parish church of St Martin in Tongre on 3 occasions, and on 3 occasions, it came back to land in Sir Hector’s gardens. On February 17^th the Bishop of Cambrai not only did recognize the miraculous transportations of the holy figure, but also came personally on the premises of the apparition to instore “the Round of the Virgin” ( Georges Huart, 17^th century).

A chapel was erected on March 27th and, in 1093, Pope Urban II established a brotherhood in Tongre. Ever since then, miraculous events accordingly kept pouring in thee, and it ids sometimes very hard to distinguish true, objective facts from the overenthusiasm of the pilgrims. The original chapel, the gothic church (from the 13th century) and the existing basilic (built in the 18th century) have seen since then all sorts of pilgrims, among which some like point out Philippe I and Louis XIV (who were Kings of France), or Queen Maria Theresa of Austria and Queen Maria Henrietta from Belgium.