House of the Virgin Mary

No early source puts Mary at Ephesus, and the question has never been settled. The tradition grows out of a verse in John’s Gospel: Jesus, dying on the cross, gives his mother into the care of the disciple he loved, and that disciple takes her into his own home¹⁵. Tradition identifies the disciple with John¹⁶, and from the late 2nd century places John at Ephesus¹⁷. From there it was a short step to Mary living at Ephesus too.

The early church did not take that step. In the 4th century Epiphanius of Salamis pointed out that although Scripture sends John to Asia, it never says Mary travelled with him, and that no one knew for certain how her life ended¹⁸. An Ephesian tradition surfaces only in Syriac writers from the 8th or 9th century, among them Moses bar Kepha and Michael the Syrian. The older tradition, and the one held by far more Christians, puts her death and tomb in Jerusalem¹⁹.

A letter from the Council of Ephesus in 431 is sometimes quoted as proof. It mentions Ephesus together with John the Theologian and the Theotokos, but the verb is missing, so it cannot show that Mary lived or died there; the 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia read it as meaning only that Ephesus had a church of the Virgin²⁰. For Byzantine pilgrims, the goal at Ephesus was John’s tomb, not any site of Mary²¹.

On 18 October 1881 a French priest, Julien Gouyet, followed Brentano’s description, found a ruin and believed it was Mary’s house. Church authorities did not take him seriously⁵.

Ten years later the search was repeated with more weight behind it. Urged by Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey, Lazarist (Vincentian) priests from Smyrna, Henri Jung and Benjamin Vervault, with the approval of their superior Eugène Poulin, rediscovered the ruin on 29 July 1891. A commission sent by Poulin in August confirmed their find⁶. Sister Marie, a Daughter of Charity who ran the French naval hospital in Smyrna, bought the site with family money in November 1892 and cared for it until her death in 1915. The shrine calls her its foundress²⁵.

The priests were not the first to treat the ruin as holy. Orthodox Greeks from the village of Çirkince, today’s Şirince, already venerated it as Panaya Kapulu and made a pilgrimage there every 15 August, according to testimony recorded in 1892. Scholars note that this local custom is documented only from the 19th century²⁶.

The chapel is not an ancient house in its present form, and its date is argued over. The Italian archaeologist Adriano Prandi, who excavated in 1965–67, dated the chapel to a domed late-Byzantine building of the 13th century, set over an earlier structure that he placed probably in the 2nd or 3rd century AD. An earlier investigator, in 1905, had proposed the 5th to 7th centuries, so the dating is not settled⁷.

In 2003 the Austrian Ephesus team dug two trial trenches in the garden, about 80 m west of the chapel, for the Turkish heritage authority, after rumours of a buried glass coffin. They found no coffin. The pottery showed instead that the atrium of an ancient villa already stood there in the 1st century BC²⁷. Tile graves west of the chapel held Byzantine coins of the 7th and 8th centuries²⁸.

Much of what visitors see is restoration. A provisional rebuilding took place between 1898 and 1902, and a full restoration followed around 1950–51 under Archbishop Joseph Descuffi of Smyrna, after which the chapel was reconsecrated. A red line on the walls separates original masonry from restored work⁸.

The 20th century interrupted the pilgrimages. The site was confiscated in 1917, and pilgrims stopped coming during and after the Greco-Turkish war. Turkey recognised private ownership in 1947, pilgrimages resumed from 1949, and the state built a paved access road in the early 1950s²⁹.

Since 1955 the property has been linked with the American Society of Ephesus, founded by the Cincinnati businessman George B. Quatman. Locally the shrine is administered by an association, the Hz. Meryem Ana Evi Derneği, and a Capuchin community serves it³⁰.

The Church has encouraged pilgrimage without ruling on the history. Pope Leo XIII blessed the first pilgrimage in 1896. In a letter to Archbishop Descuffi in 1951, Pius XII declared the house a place of pilgrimage for Catholics, and in 1961 John XXIII granted pilgrims a permanent plenary indulgence³¹. None of these acts decided whether Mary lived or died there, and the Church has never made such a ruling³. What Leo XIII blessed in 1896 was a pilgrimage; he did not declare the house authentic³¹.

Three popes have come in person:

1. 26 July 1967Paul VI visits Ephesus and the House of Mary⁹
2. 30 November 1979John Paul II celebrates Mass at the house during his visit to Turkey¹⁰
3. 29 November 2006Benedict XVI celebrates Mass there, prays for peace and speaks of Mary as loved by Muslims¹¹

Leo XIV’s first foreign journey, to Turkey in November 2025, did not include Ephesus³².

Muslims revere Maryam as the mother of the prophet Isa, Jesus, and for many Turkish Muslims, especially women, the house is a place to pray⁴. Verses of the Qur’an about Mary have been displayed in a side room since the 1980s⁴. Benedict XVI acknowledged this shared devotion when he said Mass there in 2006¹¹.

Below the house is a spring. Visitors of both faiths drink its water or take some away, and many believe it heals³³. Nearby stands the wishing wall, where people tie ribbons, strips of cloth or folded paper carrying their prayers. It is described as a Turkish folk custom in origin, now followed by visitors of every faith³⁴.

Every 15 August a solemn Mass for the Assumption, the Dormition in Orthodox tradition, is held at the shrine, continuing the older local pilgrimage on the same date¹². In recent years the Archbishop of İzmir has led it, with a vigil the evening before, while Orthodox Christians traditionally gather for the feast down in Şirince, the village whose people once made the pilgrimage³⁵²⁶.

Public transport does not run up the mountain to the house³⁷. By road the house lies some 5 km above the Upper Gate of the ancient city; from the Lower Gate the distance is 11 km, and from Selçuk about 9 km³⁷; the routes from İzmir, Selçuk and Kuşadası are the same as for getting to Ephesus itself.

Opening hours published by the shrine: 08:00–18:00¹⁴ (checked on 14 September 2026). The house is not a Ministry of Culture museum site, and entry appears to be charged separately rather than covered by the Ministry’s Ephesus ticket³⁸.

How many people come is uncertain. Figures of about 300,000 a year are given for some years, and other published estimates reach nearly a million³⁹.