A Marian pilgrimage in Benin

The Our Lady of Arigbo Grotto is a Catholic pilgrimage site located in Dassa-Zoumè, Benin. It became a place of pilgrimage in the Marian year of 1954, by decision of Bishop Louis Parisot, the first bishop of Dahomey, after a statue of the Madonna was mysteriously found in February 1954. The bishop the solemnly blessed the natural cave of Dassa in the presence of a crowd estimated at nearly 6,000 people.

Having erected a large luminous cross at the top of the mountain and decided that this new Grotto of Lourdes would henceforth be the privileged center of the great Dahomean pilgrimages in honor of the Virgin Mary, he then founded the Dassa-Zoumè pilgrimage to Our Lady of Arigbo. Since then, every year, for the feasts of the Ascension and of the Assumption, tens of thousands of faithful gather there. Pilgrims come mainly from Benin, Togo, Niger and Burkina Faso.

Adapted from Travel Benin