Case file · Apparition / miracle
The Licheń apparition
In 1850 the shepherd Mikołaj Sikatka said the Virgin Mary appeared to him in the Grąblin forest near Licheń, warning of a coming epidemic and asking that her image be honoured.
1850 CE · 52.32, 18.36 · status: account
The account
A cholera outbreak in 1852 was seen as the fulfilment of the warning, and the small image of Our Lady of Sorrows was moved to the church at Licheń. The village now has the largest church in Poland, the Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń, completed in 2004.
The sceptical view
The account comes from a single visionary; cholera epidemics were frequent in 19th-century Europe.