TheFeast of Our Lady of the Rosary, formerly known asFeast of Our Lady of Victory andFeast of the Holy Rosary is celebrated on 7 October in theGeneral Roman Calendar. 7 October is the anniversary of the decisive victory of the combined fleet of theHoly League of 1571 over theOttoman navy at theBattle of Lepanto.
In the Western Rite Vicariate of theAntiochian Orthodox Church, the feast is optionally celebrated on 7 October, under the titleThe Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[2]
The story of Dominic's vision was recorded byAlanus de Rupe. This traditional origin for the Rosary was generally accepted until the 15th century, when the Bollandists concluded that the account originated with the account recorded by Alanus, two hundred years after Dominic's death.[4]
Mary had been honored in the West under the title "Our Lady of Victory" from at least the thirteenth century.Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester built the first shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Victory in thanks for the Catholic victory over the Albigensians at theBattle of Muret on September 12, 1213.[5] In thanksgiving for victory at theBattle of Bouvines in July 1214,Philip Augustus of France founded the Abbey of Notre Dame de la Victoire, between Senlis and Mont l'Evêque.[6]
In the East, the title "Our Lady of Victory" is even older. The feast of Our Lady of Victory, on February 25, commemorates the deliverance of the city of Constantinople "from the siege of the Saracens by the aid of the Blessed Virgin, A.D. 621."[7]
In 1571,Pope Pius V organized a coalition of forces from Spain and smaller Christian kingdoms, republics and military orders, to rescue Christian outposts inCyprus, particularly the Venetian outpost atFamagusta which, however, surrendered after a long siege on 1 August before the Christian forces set sail. On 7 October 1571, theHoly League, a coalition of southern European Catholic maritime states, sailed fromMessina,Sicily, and met a powerful Ottoman fleet in theBattle of Lepanto. Knowing that the Christian forces were at a distinct material disadvantage, Pope Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory,[8][9] and led a rosary procession in Rome.[5]Pius V instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory in order to commemorate the victory at Lepanto, which he attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary.[5]
After about five hours of fighting on the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth, off western Greece, the combined navies of the Papal States,Venice and Spain managed to stop the Ottoman navy, slowing the Ottoman advance to the west and denying them access to the Atlantic Ocean and the Americas.[10] If the Ottomans had won, there was a real possibility that an invasion of Italy could have followed so that the Ottoman sultan, already claiming to be emperor of the Romans, would have been in possession of both New and Old Rome.[11] Combined with theGreat Siege of Malta (1565) and the unfolding events in Morocco where the Sa'adids successfully spurned the Ottoman advances, it confined Turkish naval power to the eastern Mediterranean. Although the Ottoman Empire was able to build more ships, it never fully recovered from the loss of trained sailors and marines, and was never again the Mediterranean naval power it had become the century before whenConstantinople fell.[10]
In 1573,Pope Gregory XIII changed the name of the feast intoFeast of the Most Holy Rosary of the Bl. Virgin Mary, to be celebrated on the first Sunday of October.[12] The Dominican friar Juan Lopez in his 1584 book on the rosary states that the feast of the rosary was offered "in memory and in perpetual gratitude of the miraculous victory that the Lord gave to his Christian people that day against the Turkish armada".[13]
In 1671 the observance of this festival was extended byClement X to the whole of Spain, and somewhat laterClement XI, after the victory over the Turks gained by Prince Eugene in theBattle of Petrovaradin on 5 August 1716 (the feast ofOur Lady of the Snows), commanded the feast of the Rosary to be celebrated by the universal church.[14]
Leo XIII raised the feast to the rank of a double of the second class and added to theLitany of Loreto the invocation "Queen of the Most Holy Rosary". On this feast, in every church in which the Rosary confraternity has been duly erected, a plenaryindulgencetoties quoties is granted upon certain conditions to all who visit therein the Rosary chapel or statue of Our Lady. This has been called the "Portiuncula" of the Rosary.[5]
Pius X in 1913 changed the date to 7 October, as part of his effort to restore celebration of the liturgy of the Sundays. In 1960 underPope John XXIII it is listed under the titleFeast of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary; and under the 1969 liturgical reforms ofPope Paul VIOur Lady of the Rosary is mentioned as a mandatory memorial.[15]
Our Lady of the Rosary byAnthony van Dyck, between 1623 and 1624
Our Lady of the Rosary is the patron saint of several places around the world. TheDiocese of Malaga, Spain (which, however celebrates her patronage on September 8), and the Spanish cities ofMelilla andTrujillo celebrate Our Lady of Victory as their patroness.
María del Rosario is a common female Spanish name (colloquially abbreviated toRosario orCharo).Rosario can also be used as a male first name, particularly in Italian.
The cathedral of the Diocese of San Bernardino, California[20]
The church of Our Lady of the Rosary in New York City – began in 1883 as the Mission of Our Lady of the Rosary for the protection of Irish immigrant girls[21]
Although the title Our Lady of Victory has been superseded to some extent by that of Our Lady of the Rosary, the former is still in popular use at a number of parishes and schools.
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Paris is an historic Marian shrine and place of pilgrimage. Augustinian friars built it between 1629 and 1740 with financial assistance from Louis XIII, who named the church Notre-Dame des Victoires in gratitude for the victory of French forces over the Huguenots at the Siege of La Rochelle (1627–28).[30]
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, San Francisco was founded in 1856 to serve French Catholic immigrants to California. In 1887,Pope Leo XIII signed the decree putting l'Eglise Notre Dame des Victoires in charge of the Marists, and making it a French National Church. The church was rebuilt in 1915 after the earthquake and fire of 1906, and was declared an historical landmark in 1984.
Our Lady of Victory is the cathedral church for the Diocese of Victoria, Texas.[32]
The church of Our Lady of Victory, also known as the War Memorial Church, in the financial district of Manhattan, New York City, was dedicated to Our Lady of Victory by Francis Cardinal Spellman, archbishop of New York and apostolic vicar for the U.S. Armed Forces on June 23, 1947 " ... in Thanksgiving for Victory won by our valiant dead, our soldiers' blood, our country’s tears, shed to defend men’s rights and win back men’s hearts to God."[33]
The chapel at St. Catherine University, St. Paul, Minnesota, is named for Our Lady of Victory, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[34]
St. Mary of Victories Hungarian Catholic Church is located in St. Louis, Missouri.[35] St. Mary's was built in 1843, and is the second oldest Catholic Church within the city limits. Originally home to German immigrants, the parish became home to the Hungarian Community in 1957 and is the official Hungarian Church for theArchdiocese of St. Louis.
Our Lady of Victories,Kensington is located in London. The Church was at one point the Pro-Cathedral in the Archdiocese of Westminster, and was heavily bombed in World War II.
^Libro en que se tratea de la importancia y exercicio del santo rosario, Zaragoza: Domingo Portonariis y Ursino (1584), cited after Lorenzo F. Candelaria,The Rosary Cantoral: Ritual and Social Design in a Chantbook from Early Renaissance Toledo, University Rochester Press (2008),p. 109.
^Octava maravilla del Nuevo Mundo en la gran Capilla del Rosario dedicada y aplaudida en el Convento de N.P.S. Domingo de la Ciudad de los Angeles el día 16 del mes de abril de 1690 al illusmo. y revmo señor D.D. Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz, Obispo de la Puebla, del Consejo de su Majestad [Eighth wonder of the New World in the great Chapel of the Rosary dedicated and applauded in the Convent of N.P.S. Sunday of the City of Los Angeles on April 16, 1690, to the most illustrious. and reverend Mr. D.D. Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz, Bishop of the Puebla, of the Council of His Majesty.]. Imprenta Platiniana de Diego Fernández de León. 1690.OCLC970590076.
^Azevedo, Esterzilda Berenstein (2012)."Chapel of Our Lady of Victory". Lisbon, Portugal: Heritage of Portuguese Influence/Património de Influência Portuguesa. Retrieved2019-07-10.
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