With those words, the dying Christ commended his mother to the loving care of St. John the Apostle. Where Mary lived with the beloved disciple afterward is an open question.

John, with his father Zebedee, was in a thriving fishing partnership with Andrew and Simon bar Jonah some 90 miles north in Galilee (Lk 5:10). The young man was known to the servants of the high priest (Jn 18:15-16), very likely because John, with his brother James, oversaw delivery of salted fish to customers in Judea, including the priestly families of Annas and Caiaphas. The family most likely maintained a home in or near Jerusalem.

Following Pentecost, and despite persecution, John stayed in Jerusalem and remained active within the Church while caring for Mary. Around the year 38, following a three-year period of reflection, Paul came back to Jerusalem and encountered John, along with James, “the brother of the Lord,” and Peter. Respectfully, Paul said they “were reputed to be pillars” of the Church (Gal 2:9).

Visions

Sometime after, according to St. Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, John went to Ephesus in Asia Minor. This detail came from Irenaeus’ teacher St. Polycarp, who was himself taught and appointed bishop of Smyrna by John the Apostle (Against Heresies, Book 3).

But was Mary with John? This is where the plot thickens.

The tale of how a site, the House of the Virgin Mary, is revered by Christians and Muslims alike begins in mystery with Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. She was a 19th century German Augustinian canoness — a bedridden mystic who bore the stigmata. In a vision, she saw: The Blessed Virgin’s dwelling was not in Ephesus itself, but from three to four hours distant. It stood on a height upon which several Christians from Judea, among them some of the holy women related to her, had taken up their abode. Between this height and Ephesus glided, with many a crooked curve, a little river. The height sloped obliquely toward Ephesus.

Dying in 1824, the sickly nun never got to set foot in Turkey. A compilation of her visions, The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, was released in 1852.

French mission

In 1881, using the book of Sister Anne Catherine’s visions as a guide, a French priest named Father Julien Gouyet found a roofless, ruined house on a sloping hill by a spring, matching the mystic’s description. His discovery then inspired Servant of God Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey — a Daughter of Charity, French noblewoman and missionary working in Smyrna (modern-day İzmir) — to go searching, too.

In 1891, she convinced Lazarist Fathers Eugène Poulin and Henri Jung, who were stationed nearby, to assist her in locating the house.

On Aug. 15, the feast (now Solemnity) of the Assumption, the priests found the same demolished house on the slopes of Mount Nightingale, about 5 miles outside of Ephesus. Intriguingly, Greek villagers nearby called it Panaya Kapulu (or Doorway to the Virgin). Sister Marie took charge, writing to her father for money to purchase the site and all Mount Nightingale. No one’s fool, she wanted neither secular nor Islamic interference with her plans to restore the ruins. Negotiations with the Ottoman Empire were long and delicate, yet ultimately successful.

Sister Marie was named the founder of Mary’s House — Domus Mariae in Latin, Meryem Ana Evi in Turkish — and began cleanup and restoration. She built a pilgrimage center with the Lazarist priests to operate it. The ruins were rebuilt as a chapel between 1898 and 1902. A residential building for guests and sisters who staffed the home was built in 1903.

With Father Jung named director of restoration, archeologists discovered foundations of a church built around the domicile in the fourth century. Later excavations disclosed the atrium of a first century BC Roman villa, further legitimizing the possibility of Mary and John having lived there, but no graves from that period have been found. Catholic and Orthodox pilgrimages began in 1896.

Mary’s House remained in Sister Marie’s care until five years before her death in 1915. In 1910, she transferred title to co-discoverer Father Poulin. The property eventually passed into possession of the Lazarist Order.

World War I

In 1917, embroiled in World War I, Turkish authorities confiscated Mount Nightingale and declared it a restricted military location. The Lazarists were allowed to return to Ephesus in 1920; they found the area neglected and some buildings demolished. Limited pilgrimages resumed in 1926, but after 10 years, the Lazarists were again forced to leave. Turkish authorities finally recognized the private ownership of the site in 1947 and the pilgrimages began again in 1949.

The online Turkish Archeological News reported that the government soon realized the tourist potential of the site, and so built a paved road to the sanctuary.

“This smart move of the Turkish authorities resulted from the proclamation made in 1950 by Pope Pius XII concerning the dogma of the Assumption of Mary,” the article stated.

The project to restore Mary’s House was begun by Bishop Joseph Emmanuel Descuffi of İzmir. “This last structural intervention took place in 1951 when the entire complex was reconstructed, and the sanctuary received its present form” (TAN). Now, pilgrims from all over the world come to Ephesus to venerate Mary.

Popes and pilgrims

The restored house is a modest chapel with a small altar set within an apsidal recess, and has a few other rooms to pass through. Pilgrims bring home water from the nearby spring and can see a key-shaped baptismal pool of the Byzantine period. On a prayer wall, pilgrims leave devotional petitions and prayers.

In 1896, Pope Leo XIII named the Domus Mariae an official place of pilgrimage. Pius XII blessed the House of the Virgin Mary with the status of holy place in 1951. A decade later, St. John XXIII granted pilgrims a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions. St. Paul VI became the first pope to visit the site in 1967 — followed by later popes St. John Paul II in 1979 and Benedict XVI in 2006 — and celebrated Holy Mass on its altar.

May the blessed Lady Mary, assumed body and soul to share in her Son’s glory, continue to pray that we all join her in the world without end. Amen.