Sanctuary of Fátima
marian shrine located in Cova da Iria, Portugal
The Sanctuary of Fátima (Portuguese: Santuário de Fátima), or Shrine of Fátima, also known as Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fátima (Portuguese: Santuário de Nossa Senhora de Fátima), is a group of Catholic Church religious buildings and structures located in Cova da Iria, in the civil parish and city of Fátima, in the municipality of Ourém, in Portugal.
In addition to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary (Portuguese: Basílica de Nossa Senhora do Rosário), the shrine consists of the Chapel of the Lausperene (Portuguese: Capela do Lausperene), a great oak tree (near which the 1917 Marian apparitions occurred), a monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Portuguese: Monumento ao Sagrado Coração de Jesus) and the Chapel of the Apparitions (Portuguese: Capelinha das Aparições), where three children, Lúcia Santos and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, said they were first visited by the Virgin Mary. In addition, several other structures and monuments were built in the intervening years to commemorate the events.
Across from the main sanctuary is the much larger Basilica of the Most Holy Trinity constructed after 1953, owing to the limited scale of the Sanctuary for large-scale pilgrimages and religious services.
History
In 1916, on three occasions, Lúcia Santos and her two cousins, Francisco and Jacinta Marto, began reporting apparitions of an angel in the region of Valinhos. These alleged visitations began on the 13 May 1917 when, while tending their family's sheep in Cova da Iria, they said they witnessed the apparition of what they later assumed was the Virgin Mary, and began doing penance and self-sacrifice to atone for sinners. Many flocked to Fátima and Aljustrel to witness these alleged apparitions along with the children, but not before the children were jailed for being politically disruptive. These visitations culminated on the 13 October 1917 public Miracle of the Sun event, as the apparition of Virgin Mary allegedly divulged three secrets to the children. Although the Miracle of the Sun marked the children's last claimed apparition, the region of Fátima continued to be a destination for pilgrims.
Victims of the 1918 flu pandemic epidemic, both cousins (Francisco and Jacinta Marto) died on 4 April 1919 and 20 February 1920 (in Aljustrel and Lisbon), respectively.
“Sanctuary of Fátima” enters the record as marian shrine located in Cova da Iria, Portugal. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sanctuary, Fátima and marian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2627029. VIAF identifies the subject as 167610733. The Library of Congress control number is no2016019105. Authority coordinates are 39.632, -8.672. 3 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1953, 1916 and 1918.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sanctuary of Fátima” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.