On October 7, 1571, things weren’t looking good for nations in Europe and the Mediterranean region. The Ottoman Empire, seeking to expand its influence throughout Europe, aimed its fleet of galleys and galleasses—with 12,000 to 15,000 Christian slaves as rowers—toward the Gulf of Patras, on the west side of Greece. Defending against the Muslim Turks was the Holy League, a much smaller fleet of Catholic ships from Spain, Venice, and Genoa, under the command of Don Juan of Austria.
However, St. Pope Pius V, realizing that the Turks had a decided material advantage, called upon all of Europe to pray the Rosary, asking Mary for victory. Christians gathered in villages and towns to pray as the sea battle raged; at the hour of victory the Pope—who was hundreds of miles away at the Vatican—is said to have gotten up from a meeting, walked over to an open window exclaiming, “The Christian fleet is victorious!” and shed tears of joy and thanksgiving to God.
The toll of the sea battle was great: The Holy League lost 50 of its galleys and suffered some 13,000 casualties. The Turks, however, lost much more: Their leader Ali Pasha was killed, along with 25,000 of his sailors. The Ottoman fleet lost 210 of its 250 ships, of which 130 were captured by the Holy League.
Coming at what was seen as a crisis point for Christianity, the victory at Lepanto stemmed Ottoman incursion into the Mediterranean and prevented their influence from spreading through Europe. Through the intervention of Our Lady, the Hand of God prevented the Muslims of the East from overcoming the Christian West.
Recognizing the importance of the victory, Pope Pius instituted a feast on October 7th in thanksgiving for Mary’s patronage.
Pope Pius originally named the feast for Our Lady of Victory. Two years later, in 1573, Pope Gregory XIII changed the title of this feast day to “Feast of the Holy Rosary.”
A new painting of Our Lady of the Rosary
Since the feast day was established in the 1500s, many artists—ranging from Caravaggio to Venezuelan Juan Pedro López, to the Italian late-Baroque artist Luca Giordano and others—have honored Mary in her role as Our Lady of the Rosary.
American artist Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs recently completed a painting of Our Lady of the Rosary which will be displayed in the church of the same name in Greenville, South Carolina.
Thompson-Briggs, who creates modern-day images of Catholic saints in oils, spoke recently about her inspiration for the project.
“Originally, I was going to do a copy of another painting,” she said. “But the museum that possessed the original refused to release the rights. They said it was a corruption of its original purpose for it to be in a church.”
She smiled a little about that—noting that the original work had been created for a church, and only later was placed on exhibit in a museum.
Thompson-Briggs worked closely with the pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary parish, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, to design her new painting.
“I had planned to depict Our Lady as ready for battle,” she explained. Her research had led her to an original statue, which had been on the ship as they went into battle at Lepanto. “The statue still exists today,” she said. “Our Lady is covered with armor! I thought that was so powerful—I was prepared to use this image.”
Fr. Longenecker, though, preferred a painting that depicted Mary like the original, dressed in red and blue. Thompson-Briggs painted the Virgin Mary in a scarlet and blue gown with gold trim, and a sheer white veil.
She retained a residual nod to the battle scene: “I have a strong wind blowing her hair and veil to the side. The Christians won, we know from history, when the winds turned in their favor. So that’s kind of a testament.”
Gwyneth added a couple of other notes about the painting: The figure of Christ (a child in his mother’s arms) is holding a small ship, a copy of the Spanish galley Real, the flagship of the fleet that Don Juan of Austria sailed into battle. There is a full-scale image of the ship in Barcelona, Gwyneth reported; and she actually built a small-scale model herself before she painted the image, so that she could see exactly where the light hit it.
On the child Jesus’ head, she painted a baby-sized papal tiara—indicating his spiritual authority. “And the only other thing I might note,” Gwyneth added, “… is that for Our Lady, I was hoping to create a more Spanish or Mediterranean type of beauty—a timeless, almond-shaped face. There’s a serenity or a confidence, or perhaps a sense of humor about our small human concerns.”
The background of soft green and brown is a map of Lepanto and the surrounding waters.
Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs’ painting of Our Lady of the Rosary will be permanently installed in Our Lady of the Rosary Church on October 6, as the parish commemorates the feast.
Displayed in the narthex, the painting will be the parish’s second remembrance of the historic battle. Fr. Longenecker explains how the Battle of Lepanto is commemorated in the sanctuary.
“Because the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary has a historical link to the Battle of Lepanto,” he says, “we ensured that the design of our new Our Lady of the Rosary Church would commemorate the battle.”
“One of the ways we have done this,” he notes, “in addition to Gwyneth’s new painting, is the starry dome in the ceiling of our magnificent baldacchino. Through computer technology,s it is possible to ascertain the appearance of the night sky at any place and date in history. Therefore, the starry dome portrays the night sky over the Bay of Lepanto on October 7, 1571—the date of the battle.”
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Iconography that has a larger purpose than just mere decoration. You have to know that this parish is not overrun by progressives; otherwise a simple felt banner would have sufficed.
My brothers and sisters: have hope that the current dis-ease of our Church that flows out from the current pontificate cannot last. Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, will perdure.
“Through the intervention of Our Lady, the Hand of God prevented the Muslims of the East from overcoming the Christian West.” Can anyone imagine a member of the hierarchy (aside from a handful of the well-known exceptions) celebrating the Battle of Lepanto today? Perhaps if the Ottomans had only asked for asylum, Pius V would have told the Christian princes to let them in and pay for their housing and grocery bills. Then again, maybe not. It is also rather unlikely he would approve of selling churches to Muslims for conversion into mosques. We are much more enlightened today.
We read: “Coming at what was seen as a crisis point for Christianity, the victory at Lepanto stemmed Ottoman incursion into the Mediterranean and prevented their influence from spreading through Europe.”
The “Mediterranean,” yes, but not quite “their influence spreading through Europe.” Here, some footnote-type details, but which do not detract from this article…
Yes, Muslim encirclement of continental Europe was temporarily stalled at the navy Battle of Lepanto in A.D. 1571. But a century later in Europe there was still the battle of Vienna (A.D. 1683, September 11/12), which actually marks the farthest extension of the eastern Islamic invasion into Europe. (In the West, the first Muslim invasion of Europe was stopped at Tours, France, in A.D. 732.) At Vienna, without the decisive intervention of the Polish King, John Sobieski, and his mounted cavalry, further inroads would have been assured. The final defeat of the Sultan in the east came in A.D. 1697, blocking his final attempt to establish an outpost north of the Danube (the original frontier of ancient Rome). The date, also September 11, seems immortalized in 2001 by the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York…
Islam does not think in distracted four-year election-cycles. And, about the Marian influence in ecclesial and world events like Lepanto, where might we look today?
In the victory at Lepanto the West’s fragmented city-state presence was united under Don Carlos. Today we have the fragmented Church, split further by the 5,000-word paradigm-shift Fiducia Supplicans, ambiguously in step with a fallen world. The modern use of word processors to sorta harmonize constructed polarities–even the universally inborn natural law with its irreducibly binary sexual morality.
From Gethsemane we find no such ambivalence recorded on parchments of the day. Mary, the Mother of God, pray for us.
Opps, a senior moment. Don Juan, not Don Carlos.
We are gaining in courage to say full truth. October 7 was the VICTORY OF THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO, trough the Virgen Mary intercession by the praying of the Rosary and the courageous Fighting to Death of many Christian Men, promoted by a Saint Pope, over the invaders Muslims. The first real stop of the Muslims threatening our Western Christian Civilization.
It is Honest History of the real facts and not politically correct name of facts.
Congratulations to Fr. Dwight Longenecker and Ms. Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs.
Good article. The original idea of the artist was the right one. But of course, she was overruled by the timid priest. No mention is made that “the Ottoman Turks” were in fact the Islamic Caliphate, and that the Turkish Sultan was the Caliph of Islam (since 1517 the Caliphate of Islam was in the hands of the Turks); or that Pope Paul VI gave to the Turks the captured battle flag of the Turks (which for centuries had been kept by the tomb of Pius V) as “a gesture of good will”. For all this see these instructive articles by Fr. Rutler and other scholars:
https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=11684
The Banners of Lepanto
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/12/16/the-forgotten-history-of-christian-slavery-under-islam/
“The Forgotten History of Christian Slavery under Islam”
https://www.thepostil.com/christian-slavery-under-islam-a-conversation-with-dario-fernandez-morera/
“Christian Slavery under Islam”