National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa

Catholic shrine in Pennsylvania

The National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa (or simply Czestochowa), known also as the American Czestochowa is a Polish American Roman Catholic shrine near Doylestown, Pennsylvania, founded in 1953. It houses a reproduction of the Black Madonna icon of Częstochowa, Poland. The heart of Poland's third prime minister, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, is also preserved there.

In 1953 a Polish Pauline monk, Father Michael M. Zembrzuski, purchased a tract of land near Doylestown with the intention of building a chapel dedicated to the Black Madonna of Częstochowa at Jasna Góra Monastery, Poland's most important religious icon, to reconnect Polish Americans with their Polish Catholic roots. Archbishop John Francis O'Hara of Philadelphia granted permission for the erection of a shrine, and a barn was converted into the first chapel; it was moved to a new site and dedicated on June 26, 1955. The chapel was reorganized as a shrine to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the Polish nation in 1966. It was dedicated on October 16, 1966, by Archbishop (later Cardinal) John Krol, with President Lyndon B. Johnson and members of his family as honored guests. Since 1988, there has been an annual pilgrimage from the Church of Ss. Peter and Paul in Great Meadows, New Jersey. Thousands take part in an outdoor Rosary candlelight procession on October 7, Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. The shrine is under the direction of the Pauline Fathers and Brothers who also administer the Shrine in Poland.