Our Lady of the Enclosed Garden

The Roman Catholic hermitage of Our Lady of the Enclosed Garden is situated in the former Reformed church of Warfhuizen, a village in the province of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. It is the only Dutch hermitage currently inhabited by a hermit. The name draws upon the traditional epithet for the Virgin Mary (“Our Lady”) of the hortus conclusus or enclosed garden, a reference to the Song of Songs that indicates Mary’s “perpetual virginity and at the same time her fruitful maternity.” The hermitage was founded in 2001 as the dwelling of a diocesan hermit. As is typical of Dutch hermitages, it includes a public chapel that has a distinct role in popular devotions, in this case, to the Virgin Mary. It is the northernmost Marian shrine in the Netherlands.

Church data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).