Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Maria Stein, OH

Maria Stein is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Marion Township, Mercer County, Ohio — it has no village government of its own.

The name Maria Stein is German for 'Mary's stone' or 'Mary of the Rock,' and the community is believed to have been named by missionary priest Father Francis de Sales Brunner after Mariastein Abbey in Switzerland.

Maria Stein lies at the center of western Ohio's 'Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches,' a rural region of German Catholic parishes founded by Father Brunner and the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.

Father Brunner brought the Sisters of the Precious Blood to America in 1844 and established their foundation at Maria Stein in 1846; the Maria Stein Convent served as the order's motherhouse until 1923.

Maria Stein is home to the Shrine of the Holy Relics, founded in 1875, whose collection of more than 1,100 relics in 970 reliquaries representing some 900 saints is the second largest of its kind in the United States.

The shrine's convent and relic chapel, built between 1890 and 1902, were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The 2020 census counted 1,067 residents in the Maria Stein census-designated place, a German Catholic farming community known for its rich, dark soil and multi-generation family farms.

Every year in late June the community hosts the Maria Stein Country Fest on the shrine grounds, celebrating its rural and religious roots.

Maria Stein is home to Marion Local High School, whose Flyers football team is a small-school dynasty — the Flyers went unbeaten from the end of the 2020 season through 2025, building one of the longest winning streaks in American high school football.

St. John's Church in Maria Stein is one of the signature cross-tipped churches that give the surrounding region its nickname.