This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Ex-voto is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
An ex-voto is a votive offering to a saint or divinity. It is given in fulfillment of a vow (hence the Latin term, short for ex voto suscepto, "from the vow made") or in gratitude or devotion. Ex-votos are placed in a church or chapel where the worshipper seeks grace or wishes to give thanks. The destinations of pilgrimages often include shrines decorated with ex-votos.
Ex-votos can take a wide variety of forms. They are not only intended for the helping figure, but also as a testimony to later visitors of the received help. As such they may include texts explaining a miracle attributed to the helper, or symbols such as a painted or modeled reproduction of a miraculously healed body part, or a directly related item such as a crutch given by a person formerly lame. In the church of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde in Marseille, France, the site of a major local pilgrimage, the ex-votos include paintings, plaques, model boats, war medals and even football shirts given by players and supporters of Olympique de Marseille, the local team. In a corner of the basilica of Saint Joseph's Oratory in Montreal there is a tall wall with thousands of crutches and other supports from those Brother André supposedly healed. Pope John Paul II recognized the authenticity of the miracles and beatified Brother André in 1982.
 Votive tablets to Saint Mary in Himmerod Abbey, Germany |
 A model ship (probably thanking help during a storm) hanging in a Söderköping church. |
 Ex-votos in the Lady Chapel of Jasna Góra, Częstochowa |
 Several body parts in a Cypriot plaque from the Roman age. |
See also
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Ex voto |
 |
This Roman Catholicism-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 |
This article about a saint is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 5 December 2008, at 11:19.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Ex-voto".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.