WARSAW, Poland, July 20 (UPI) -- Cyclists have begun a 370-mile tour to the Holy Mary shrine at Czestochowa in southern Poland, the country's oldest and biggest Roman Catholic pilgrimage.
About 260 cyclists left Szczecin in northwest Poland on just one of the pilgrimage routes that will converge August 15 at the castle-like monastery of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa, housing the shrine of the Black Madonna, Polish Radio said Monday.
The image is known as the Black Madonna because it was damaged during a fire while the monastery was being attacked in the early 1400s. Regularly housed in a small chapel in the monastery, it is said to have been painted by St. Luke on a panel of cypress wood from a table belonging to the holy family.
Hundreds of thousands of Polish believers make the annual visit to the shrine, coming by auto, truck and other vehicles and also by foot from all over the country.
The Szczecin group of cyclists are making their pilgrimage for the 16th consecutive year.
One of the largest groups of pilgrims sets out on foot from Warsaw in the first week of August on a 190-mile walk to the Black Madonna shrine.
The first annual pilgrimage to Czestochowa was organized in 1711 when a group of 20 Warsaw residents walked to Czestochowa, arriving on August 15, the feast of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin Mary, to give thanks for their survival of a plague epidemic, the radio said.
