Chris Maunder is Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at York St John University. Since completing a PhD at the University of Leeds in 1991, he has written several articles on the European apparitions of Mary. Whilst being a scholar of Catholic popular religion in his professional life, he is also passionate about Marian shrines as a personal interest, visiting them across Europe and helping to maintain his local shrine, a 15th-century rock chapel in Knaresborough, Yorkshire. His publications include Our Lady of the Nations: Apparitions of Mary in 20th-Century Catholic Europe (2016), Origins of the Cult of the Virgin Mary (2008), and Documents of the Christian Church, Fourth Edition (co-edited with Henry Bettenson; 2011).