Our Mother of Perpetual Succour (), colloquially known as Our Lady of Perpetual Help), is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a 15th-century Byzantine icon and a purported Marian apparition. The image was enshrined in the Church of San Matteo in Via Merulana from 1499 to 1798 and is today permanently enshrined in the Church of Saint Alphonsus of Liguori in Rome, where the novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help is prayed weekly.
Pope Pius IX granted a pontifical decree of canonical coronation along with its official formalized title on 5 May 1866. The Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, Cardinal Ruggero Luigi Emidio Antici Mattei, executed the rite of coronation on 23 June 1867.
The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer serve as custodians of the icon. The image is alternatively named as the Virgin of the Passion in Eastern Orthodoxy. Novena prayers are held before its feast day on 27 June every year. Due to promotion by the Redemptorist priests, the image has gained popularity among Western and Eastern Catholics. Modern reproductions are often displayed in residential homes, commercial establishments, and public transportation.
History of the Marian title
The Cretan image originated as an Eastern Orthodox icon of the Virgin of the Passion called Amolyntos which depicted the Madonna and Child along with two angels carrying the Holy Instruments of the Passion of Jesus Christ.
The current title derives from the external door tymphanum of the Augustinian Church of San Matteo in Via Merulana, where the antiquated inscription from 1579 once bore the invocation:
The Order of Saint Augustine already had a devotion to this Marian title based on a namesake cloistered monastery "Our Lady of Help" () in Corleone, Palermo, Sicily.
This posthumous title was formalized by Pope Pius IX based on the history of the older church that housed the icon in the present accorded title "Holy Mother of Perpetual Succour" (). The same decorative style is reconstructed in its current original shrine.
Claims of origin
Painted by Andreas Rizo of Candia
According to many art historians, the image was painted by the leading painter of the Cretan school, Andreas Rizo de Candia (1421–1492), who created several works bearing high resemblance to the icon, many for export to Italy.
A pious tale later emerged through the published account of Jesuit priest Father Concezio di Carroci, who later alleged that the image was originally stolen from Lasithi, Crete by an anonymous Roman merchant. This pious account was popularized by the sensationalized tale of a Marian apparition to a young maiden, now related to the icon being transferred to the Church of San Matteo in Via Merulana.
The former Archpriest of Saint Peter's Basilica, Cardinal Francesco Nerli Jr. also praised the icon for its miraculous claims of glorious wonder ().
The Monastery of Kardiotissa According to the Keras Kardiotissas Monastery, the icon was painted by Lazarus Zographos (810–865 AD) and was known as the Panagia Kardiotissa (), due to the depiction of the Mother of God holding the Child Jesus near her heart. Historian Stergios Spanakis had argued that the miraculous icon was the reason for the founding of the monastery. The Italian Franciscan priest and traveler Cristoforo Buondelmonti visited Crete in 1415, wrote of a similar icon being miraculous:
Accordingly, the icon alleging to be the same image was claimed to be stolen from the monastery in 1498Ioannou 2012teicrete.gr The earliest written account of the icon after its abduction comes from a Latin and Italian plaque placed in the church of San Matteo in Via Merulana where it was first venerated by the public in 1499. The writer of the icon is unknown, but according to a parchment attached to the painting that accompanied the icon, it was stolen by a merchant sailing to Rome from the island of Crete. The image remained in the private possession of a Roman merchant and his family until 27 March 1499, when the icon was transferred to the church of San Matteo where it remained for 300 years. The picture was then popularly called the "Madonna di San Matteo".
According to the Redemptorist Order
The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer maintain a robust account of the icon and its passage from the private hands of a merchant family in Rome to its final and current location at Sant'Alfonso di Liguori, on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. The accounting includes the story of a merchant who secured the icon from Crete, and brought it to his family's home in Rome, during the late 15th century. The story includes a passage of a young member of the family, the six-year-old daughter of the merchant, who was visited by the Virgin Mary in a dream. Part of the accounting includes the following passage:
The icon remained at Saint Matthew's for three centuries. For at least the final 60 years of the 18th century, St. Matthew's was occupied by the Augustinian Order of the Catholic Church. When war broke out in Rome in 1798, the icon was moved to the Church of Saint Mary in Posterula, near the "Umberto I" bridge that crosses the Tiber River in Rome. The icon remained "hidden" there until Pope Pius IX granted the possession of the icon to the Redemptorists by Pontifical decree in 1865. The Church of Saint Mary in Posterula was later demolished in 1880.
According to the account by the Redemptorists: "In January 1866, Fathers Michael Marchi and Ernest Bresciani went to Saint Mary's in Posterula to receive the picture from the Augustinians.". The Redemptorists had purchased the property where the former Saint Matthew's had stood, and had established and built the modern Sant'Alfonso di Liguori, in honor of the founder of their congregation. Thus, the venerated icon of the Catholic Church was returned to the location described by the Virgin Mary in the dream of the merchant's daughter, that is, at the church between Saint Mary Major and Saint John Lateran.
Redemptorist tradition holds that Pope Pius IX declared, in 1866, that the Redemptorists make the icon known to the world, and so, several copies were made and sent to Redemptorist parishes around the world.
Translation (transfer) of the image
In 1798, French troops under Prince Louis-Alexandre Berthier occupied Rome as part of the French Revolutionary Wars, establishing the short-lived Roman Republic and taking Pope Pius VI prisoner. Among the several churches demolished during the French occupation was San Matteo in Via Merulana, which housed the icon. The Augustinian friars who rescued the icon first took it to the nearby Church of Saint Eusebius, then later set it up on a side altar in the Church of Santa Maria in Posterula.
In January 1855, the Redemptorist priests purchased Villa Caserta in Rome along the Via Merulana and converted it into their headquarters. Decades later, Pope Pius IX invited the Redemptorist Fathers to set up a Marian house of veneration in Rome, in response to which the Redemptorists built Sant'Alfonso di Liguori at that location. The Redemptorists were thus established on the Via Merulana, not knowing that it had once been the site of the Church of San Matteo and shrine of the once-famous icon.
Custodianship
The icon was moved to the former Church of Saint Matthew on 27 March 1499 by the Augustinians who were custodians of the image. The icon remained damaged and unrestored at the backside chapel of the Church of Saint Matthew, where an Augustinian monk, Agostino Orsetti complained that the devotees did not venerate the icon well enough due to an already existing image of "The Madonna of Grace" venerated in the main altar. A younger friend of Orsetti, the Redemptorist missionary, Michael Marchi saw the opportunity for the Order of Redemptorists planning to build a new church in the Esquilline Hill. This proposal was brought to Father—General Nicholas Mauron who then petitioned Pope Pius IX for papal dispensation to transfer the custodianship of the original image.
Pope Pius IX sent a letter on 11 December 1865 to Father—General Nicholas Mauron, which ordered that the Marian image be once again publicly venerated in Via Merulana, the new designated church of Saint Alphonsus of Ligouri. The same pontiff directed the Augustinian friars to surrender the original icon to the Redemptorist priests, on condition that the Redemptorists must supply the Augustinian priests with another adequate picture in exchange as a gesture of goodwill.
The instructions of the Pontifical order to the Redemptorists were:
The original icon remains under the care of the Redemptorist Fathers at the Church of St. Alphonsus of Ligouri with the latest restoration of the icon having taken place in 1990.
Feast Day The commemoration of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was fixed by Pope Pius IX on 27 June as a feast (second class double) in May 1876. It remained a feast on the General Roman Calendar appearing on the calendar of 1960. In the calendar reform following the Ecumenical Council of Vatican II it was removed from the universal calendar and then added by national episcopal conferences. The countries which include in it their national liturgical calendars are: Costa Rica, Haiti, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Russia. The commemoration enjoys the rank of feast on the Redemptorist liturgical calendar, with its own propers for the Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass. There are also propers for the Mass in the Extraordinary Form. In the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Feast of Our Mother of Perpetual Help is observed on the first Sunday in July, with Festal propers added to the Divine Liturgy.
Restoration and carbon dating
Pope Pius IX tasked the Dean of the College of Cardinals, Costantino Patrizi Naro to restore the worn and damaged image on 26 April 1866. The icon underwent restoration by the Polish painter Leopold Nowotny (1822–1870).
In 1990, the icon was taken down from its altar for new photography and image restoration commissioned by the General Government of Redemptorists. The Redemptorist Order entered into contract with the Technical Department at the Vatican Museum to restore the icon and prevent further fungal damage to the icon. The restoration process involved X-ray, infrared scanning, technical analysis of the paint and ultra-violet testing along with a carbon-14-test which placed the icon between the year 1325–1480. Artistic analysis of the icon revealed that the facial structure of the icon was altered due to previous overpainting, resulting in a combination of "oriental and occidental" features of the image.
Composition of the image
The original wooden icon is suspended on the altar, measures 17" × 21" inches, on a wood panel with a gold leaf background.Festschrift zum Andenken a die Wiedereröffnung der St. Peters-Kirche, St. Peter's Church Philadelphia, 1901, page 93 The image depicts the following symbols: The Blessed Virgin Mary – wearing a dress of dark red, in Byzantine iconography the color of the Empress. The subject shows Mary looking towards the faithful while pointing at the Child Jesus, frightened by the instruments of crucifixion and is depicted with a fallen sandal. The left side is Saint Michael Archangel – carrying the lance and sponge of the crucifixion of Jesus. On the right side is Saint Gabriel Archangel carrying a 3-bar cross and nails. The Virgin Mary has a star on her forehead signifying her role as Star of the Sea while the cross on the side has been claimed as referring to the Greek monastery which produced the icon.
Byzantine depictions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in art have three stars, one star each on the shoulder and one on the forehead. This type of icon is called Hodegetria, where Mary is pointing to her Son, known as a Theotokos of the Passion.
The Greek inscriptions read (, Mother of God), ΟΑΜ (, Michael the Archangel), (, Gabriel the Archangel) and IC-XC (, Jesus Christ), respectively.