Venue Information

The National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa (or simply Czestochowa), known also as the American Czestochowa is a Polish-American Roman Catholic shrine near Doylestown, Pennsylvania, founded in 1953. It houses a reproduction of the Black Madonna icon of Częstochowa, Poland. The heart of Poland's third prime minister, Ignacy Jan Paderewski, is also preserved there.

In 1953 a Polish Pauline monk, Father Michael M. Zembrzuski, purchased a tract of land near Doylestown with the intention of building a chapel dedicated to the Black Madonna of Częstochowa at Jasna Góra, Poland's most important religious icon, to reconnect Polish-Americans with their Polish Catholic roots. A barn was converted into the first chapel; it was moved to a new site and dedicated on June 26, 1955.