The icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help is one of my favourite icons. So much so that when I picked our wedding icons I chose a set with Our Lady of Perpetual Help for the Marian icon. And that is why this icon is our topic for today!
The Icon
The Our Lady of Perpetual Help icon shows the Theotokos (known as The Theotokos of the Passion in the Eastern tradition) holding the child Jesus, with both his hands in her own. Jesus looks towards Archangel Gabriel. Gabriel holds the cross and nails in the top right of the image. On the top left, Archangel Michael holds the spear, crown of thorns, and the wine soaked sponge. These depictions represent Jesus meditating on his Passion. The way Jesus holds his mother’s hand shows the distress he feels, and how Mary comforts him.
At the same time, the archangels hold the instruments of the Passion like they are presenting gifts or trophies. The gold background reminds us of the glory of the resurrection. In this way the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help also expresses Christ’s triumph over death and sin.
Jesus’ sandal falling from his foot shows the haste with which he has run to Mary in fear, gazing at the angels who hold the instruments of his Passion and death. The loose sandal also represents Christ’s divine nature, untied from the bounds of earth. The sandal that remains secure is symbolic of His human nature. While the Theotokos is holding Jesus’ hands to comfort him, she is also holding him out to us. She presents Jesus as he is, fully God but also fully man. In this way, Our Lady of Perpetual Help is also an icon expressing the truth of the incarnation.
History of the Icon
Some of the earliest traditions claim that this icon was one of the images of Our Lady and Christ written by St. Luke. The archaeological evidence places the origin of Our Lady of Perpetual Help icon was probably written sometime in the 1200s, on a wood canvas. It measures about 21.25 inches by 16.33 inches. It was kept in a church in Greece, on the island of Crete. Near the end of the 15th century a merchant took the icon by boat to Rome. Some accounts say he stole the icon, but turned to it in prayer during a storm at sea. When the man arrived in Rome, he became ill. Before dying he asked a friend to take the icon to one of the churches in Rome.
Instead of doing this right away, the man took the icon home. There his wife saw the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and insisted that they keep the icon in their house. Here, accounts of what happened differ. What the variations hold in common is that the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to members of the friend’s family (especially including his daughter). In the visions, Mary asks that her icon be brought to a church where it may be publicly venerated. In one account, she warns that the husband will die if he does not return the icon to the church. However the family was convinced, they did eventually give the icon over to the care of the Church.
In the care of the Church…
On March 27th of 1499, the Our Lady of Perpetual Help icon was brought in procession to the church of St. Matthew. The site became a popular place for pilgrimage for the next three hundred years. Then war ravaged the area and the church was destroyed. The icon was then left in the care of Augustinian monks.
The site of the old St. Matthew’s church became the location of a new church – St. Alphonsus – as well home to Redemptorists. After many years, the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help was remembered, and the Redemptorists appealed to St. Pius IX to have it returned to their church.
Therefore, the icon received another procession on April 26, 1866, when it was enthroned in the church of St. Alphonsus. That is where the original Our Lady of Perpetual Help icon remains to this day.
The Byzantine Life
If you enjoyed this article, you may also like to read about How to Make Your Own Icon Corner, or Why Byzantine Chuches Have Iconostasis. Let me know in the comments what icon you love the most!
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One of my favorite icons too. Thanks for a very informative post!
We Now Have The Icon Of Our Lady Of Perpetual Help…..Could You Please Inform Us Of The Writings At The Top Of The Picture …What Do They Mean?..Thank You
Glory to Jesus Christ, Anne! So the letters that you find at the top of the Icon are in the Greek language. In the tradition of Greek or Byzantine iconography, it was thought appropriate to label, usually in an abbreviation, the name and title of the people presented in the icon. For instance in this icon and in every icon of Christ, we see the letters: IC XC. These stand for “Jesus” and “Christ” respectively. The letters that you are referring to are most likely the following: ΆΓ ΜΡ ΘΥ ΆΜ. These letters stand for “St. Gabriel”, “Mary Theotokos (Mother of God)” and “Saint Michael” respectively. Sometimes you will also see Church Slavonic, Romanian, Serbian, Latin or even English depending upon who wrote the icon, as there is no defined rules (at least in Byzantine Catholic Churches) for what languages you can use when writing any icon. Let us know if you have any other questions! God bless, Kyleshka and TheBadgerDad.
I would like to know what the little symbol means over the holy name if Mary. I know the letters are Greek but I seen this little arc or line-with an arc, above MAR in latin. What does the little arc mean? I wondered if it is like the tagins in Hebrew.
Thank you. Simon
Glory to Jesus Christ!
Hello Simon, these arc lines above the names are a common diacritic, called a “titlo”, used especially in art but also in liturgical and other resources in Latin, Greek and Slavonic, that indicates an abbreviation of the word. It’s most commonly associated with Greek and Slavonic iconography but even among Old Church Slavonic texts such as the Gospel Lectionary for the Divine Liturgy, words referencing Almighty God such as “Lord” or “God” are abbreviated. The name of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ and that of the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary are as well but even other words such as “Angel,” “Mercy,” and “Kingdom” are all abbreviated. There are some indications that it is used in a sacred or reverent sense, especially following Jewish practice of not pronouncing the Name of God in the Tetragrammaton and similar abbreviations used in Greek tradition, but it can also be understood as a stylistic or pragmatic way to increase efficiency in hand copying texts. Both interpretations seem to have logical merit and tradition to back them up. A quick reference can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titlo
Thank you for checking out Kyleshka’s work here at TheByzantineLife.com and have a Blessed Great and Holy Fast,
TheBadgerDad
Wow!!! Thank you for such a complete response. May God ever bless you for your kindness to me.
Simon
I’m so glad to finally know more about this icon! I’m Roman Catholic but God has stirred a desire in my heart to learn more about eastern Catholicism, specifically the Byzantine Rite. (My great-grandparents from Slovakia were Byzantine so that’s how the interest initially began, when I was a teen.) We bought Our Lady of Perpetual Help icon in Venice and it now sits on our mantle. On the other end of the mantle we have a statue of Our Lady of Fatima that belonged to a Carmelite nun, Sr. Jacinta, who was very close with my husband’s family and recently passed away. I love that we have a symbol of both east and west that we can look at every day! Thank you for your blog, I am learning a lot!! 🙂
Christ is Among us, Malori!
Thank you for your comment! We really appreciate it. You can find more about my own research into the Byzantine connections to Fatima here: https://thebyzantinelife.com/fatima-and-the-rosary/ and in several videos on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLr-s-3NrQWZhOI9O_s1deIZ6IFyhS_pL-
Also my interview with Timothy Flanders over at The Meaning of Catholic on the same subject over here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeDMwiur5Z0
In Canada we have a Slovakian Byzantine Catholic Eparchy in Ontario and Quebec, and their former Bishop was a Ukrainian Catholic Redemptorist from our hometown!
Thank you again, so much, for your support.
Pray for Ukraine.
In Christ,
TheBadgerDad and Kyleshka
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