Besnyõ also fell victim to Turkish destruction. In the documents of the 18th century it can be found as an uninhabited desert belonging to Gödöllõ. It came in this condition into the property of Antal Grassalkovich I who then purchased the neighbouring estates, in 1737. The third wife of Antal Grassalkovich I, Terézia Klobusiczky planned the building of a Loreto chapel in Besnyõ, in the place of the ruins of the church, overgrown by forest. In the course of digging, one of the masons - according to legend, guided by a dream - found in the earth a statuette carved of bone on April 19, 1759. The ivory carving of the 12th - 13th century represents the Virgin Mary with the child Jesus in her arms. The circumstances of the find were verified by Kristóf Migazzi, bishop of Vác. Following this, Grassalkovich I had the statuette decorated with 23 cut diamonds and put it into a jewel-case of silver and crystal glass and kept it in the palace chapel.
The chapel of Besnyõ was consecrated on August 15, 1761. A copy of the Loreto statue of Mary carved of cedar wood was placed in it. Grassalkovich I decorated the statue, which grew black in the course of time, with gilded silver crowns. The ivory-carved statue of Mary was brought from the mansion to Besnyõ only on festive occasions. It finally came back on December 7, 1763. This was the time when the cloister built for the Capuchin monks destined to care for the believers was handed over to them.
The statue of the Holy Virgin found under miraculous circumstances attracted thousands of pilgrims to this place. Therefore, Antal Grassalkovich I considered it necessary to extend the chapel. An upper church containing the Loreto chapel and a lower church was added to the chapel standing on the hill between 1768 and 1771. The consecration happened on March 17, 1771.
The present high altar of the upper church was made in 1917. In the middle the ivory carving of the miraculous statue of the Virgin Mary can be seen. The statue of Mary made of cedar wood can be seen behind the altar. In the same place are the portraits of Antal Grassalkovich I and his friend, Cardinal Count Kristóf Migazzi. The pictures of the by-altars were painted by Norbert Baumgartner, a capuchin monk of Vienna, in about 1770. The interior of the church is ornamented with the frescoes and painted glass windows of Lajos Márton, made in 1941-42. The gilded, rococo-style confessionals date from the 18th century.
The altar-pieces of the by-altars in the lower church are also the work of Norbert Baumgartner. The frescoes and painted glass windows were also made, or planned, by Lajos Márton. The crypt of the Grassalkovich family opens out from the lower church. Here were buried Antal Grassalkovich I, and, later, his wife, Terézia Klobusiczky. Their coffins are placed in a sepulchre made of red and black marble, ornamented with the family arms, which Cardinal Migazzi ordered to be made on the first anniversary of the death of Grassalkovich I. Its maker was Johann Georg Dorfmeister. Left of the sepulchre can be found the copper coffins of Antal Grassalkovich II and his wife, Anna Mária Eszterházy. And, in the coffins on the right, Antal Grassalkovich III and his wife, Leopoldina Eszterházy, lie. A separate crypt was made in the building for the Capuchin monks.
Beside the church the typical cross of the capuchins can be seen, with the symbols of Christ's crucifixion. At the wall of the yard bordered by the church and the monastery stands the statue of St Conrad. The statue was made by Ludvig Krausz in 1934.
Antal Grassalkovich I took the first steps to settle people in the area which was an uninhabited desert when the church was built. He had seven houses built for his servants on the estate, who were growing too old, and who helped with the activities needed around the church.
The country's smallest shrine soon helped Besnyõ to become the largest place of pilgrimage in the area lying beside the river Galga. From the end of the 19th century the settlement figured in the documents under the name "Máriabesnyõ". The church was restored in 1912, at the time when the Loreto chapel opened out from the upper church. It has been an independent parish since 1936. On the hill to the side of the church, the convent of the nuns called the Salvator Sisters was built in 1933. Some members of the order had begun to stay in Máriabesnyõ from 1917 where they founded their noviciate in three small peasant houses.
The Capuchins and the Salvator Sisters had to leave Máriabesnyõ in 1950 owing to the suppression of the monastic orders. The monasteries came into the property of the state. Only the Catholic parsonage remained in the cloister of the Capuchins. The rest of the building was used by the University of Agricultural Sciences. The "Török Ignác" Grammar School was housed in the convent. From 1975 on, kindergarten teachers were also trained here.
The buildings were returned to church ownership in August 1989. Restoration of both the church and the monasteries started in 1988 and was finished in 1933. Since the renovation, a collection of 18th and 19th-century vestments, representations of the Holy Virgin, and of other ecclesiastical memorials can be seen in the corridor leading from the upper church. In the cloister of the Capuchins novices are being prepared for the monastic vocation. Part of the building on top of the hill is again the convent of the Salvator Sisters. A larger part of it is used as the retreat house of the Vác episcopate.
The main pilgrimages in Máriabesnyõ are on August 15 and September 8.