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In Lebanon, on a rocky hill in Harissa overlooking the town of Jounieh and the Mediterranean Sea, the shrine of Our Lady of Lebanon is a place of pilgrimage visited by the entire Lebanese population. The building is owned by the Maronites, Eastern Rite Catholics, but it is not uncommon to see Muslims, including many Shiite women, climbing the 104-step spiral staircase to the top of the monumental statue of the Virgin Mary, known as Our Lady of Lebanon.
The shrine comprises two buildings: the original chapel built in 1908, topped by the monumental statue, and the modern church built in the 1980s, elevated to the rank of minor basilica, which can accommodate much larger assemblies.
Fifty years after Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854), the Maronite Church wished to mark this anniversary with solemnity, and thus express the love of the Lebanese people for the Virgin Mary.
The Maronite Patriarch Elias Hoyek, the Apostolic Nuncio Charles Duval and a Swiss Jesuit, Lucien Cattin, launched this project in 1904. The Maronite Patriarch's residence and the Apostolic Nunciature are located nearby.
The bronze statue, imported from France, is 8.5 meters high, 5 meters wide and weighs 15 tonnes. The Virgin Mary appears to be reaching out towards Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. The liturgical feast of Our Lady of Lebanon is celebrated on the first Sunday in May, in memory of the chapel's inauguration on this date in 1908.
The basilica is an architectural combination of a Lebanese cedar and a Phoenician ship, which gives it plenty of light, with huge bay windows symbolizing the ship's sails. At 115 meters long and 67 meters wide, it can accommodate up to 3,500 people. Saint John Paul II celebrated mass here on May 10, 1997.