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| The naval battle of Lepanto - 1571 |
- Brian Mendonca
Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. This is one of the many avatars of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Like the scapular, the rosary too is and object of veneration. It's antecedents are interesting.
7th October marks the anniversary of the victory of the combined fleet of the Crusades against the Ottoman Turks at the Gulf of Lepanto, Greece, in 1571. It was established by Pope Pius the Vth.
Owing to the intransigence of the Turks, the Pope mobilized, Venice, Spain and the states of the church in a naval assault on the Turks. Having incurred losses the Pope called for rosaries to be said all over Europe. He himself led a rosary procession in Rome. The forces of the Pope prevailed. Davis observes that the victory was more a moral than a naval one. It signified the end of the sway of Ottoman power - which, under Suleiman, had ravaged Christian Europe - and confined them to the Eastern Mediterranean.
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Paul K. Davis, Hundred Decisive Battles from Ancient Times to the Present (OUP, 1999); pic courtesy michaeldevillier(at)blogspot.com; Updated 10 October 2021.
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Paul K. Davis, Hundred Decisive Battles from Ancient Times to the Present (OUP, 1999); pic courtesy michaeldevillier(at)blogspot.com; Updated 10 October 2021.
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