Question: Where is the house of the Virgin Mary? Can I visit it?
Yes, you certainly can visit the House of the Virgin Mary! It is located in Turkey in the hills that dot the landscape between Seljuk and Ephesus. Scripture tells us that Jesus entrusted his mother Mary into the care of his disciple John (and, likewise, John was entrusted into her maternal care). Tradition tells us that John travelled to Ephesus after the Resurrection to preach the gospel and Mary came with him. It is said that John had a simple house built for Mary in the peaceful hills where she lived out the rest of her days.
The house is a place of pilgrimage for both Christians and Muslims (they honor Mary as the mother of a prophet and believe in the virgin birth of Jesus). In 1812, a German nun named Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich had a vision specifying the location of the Virgin’s House … extraordinary considering she had never left her homeland! Ruins of a small chapel with a statue of Our Lady from the 7th century AD were found in the exact place the sister had described. Archeologists date the foundation of the small dwelling in the 1st century A.D. It had long been a place of pilgrimage for Orthodox Christians.
