Pilgrimage to Chartres

In 2007, the 25th anniversary of the pilgrimage, amid rumours of a forthcoming papal document favouring use of the 1962 Roman Missal – the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum was in fact published on 7 July of that year – there were nearly ten thousand pilgrims in Chartres on Pentecost Monday May 28 despite difficult weather conditions.

Its popularity is largely due to the presence of the Sancta Camisa, a piece of silk supposed to have been worn by the Blessed Virgin Mary at the birth of Jesus, donated to the cathedral by King Charles the Bald.

[2] French poet and essayist, Charles Peguy, is credited with keeping the pilgrim's route from Paris to Chartres alive in the 20th century.

[6] In 1988, traditionalist archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated four priests as bishops against the express order of Pope John Paul II.

Due to the declaration of schism in the motu proprio, Ecclesia Dei, the traditionalist community was essentially divided due to this event, and Archbishop Lefebvre's Society of Saint Pius X has since organized a separate pilgrimage which goes from Chartres to Paris called Le Pèlerinage de Tradition (Pilgrimage of Tradition).