From Crete to Singapore via Rome and St. Louis

Abstract

At a Catholic church of the Redemptorist order in Singapore, a crowd surrounds an icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help (fig. 1). Concurrently, thousands come for the weekly devotions to Our Mother and her icon at the National Shrine in Baclaran, Philippines (fig. 2). Some walk the length of the long nave on their knees. The object of veneration in both churches is a handpainted copy of a fifteenth-century post-Byzantine icon, now in the Redemptorist church of Sant’Alfonso di Liguori in Rome, that has been called the most popular icon in the world today (figs. 3–4). Swathed in a dark blue cloak, Mary looks directly at viewers. Her right hand is held up; her long fingers point to her infant child whom she cradles in her left hand. The child Jesus grasps the thumb of her right hand and looks back at Gabriel, the angel at the right. Frightened and agitated by what he sees there, he is about to lose one sandal. Gabriel can be identified by his abbreviation, the Greek letter G; the archangel Michael is similarly labeled M. Gabriel carries a cross and four nails; Michael a brown jar from which extend two poles. Their tips are difficult to discern, but from other versions of the icon, these must be a sponge and a spear point. Jesus was tortured and killed at the Crucifixion by these objects: the nails affixed his limbs to the cross, a spear pierced his side, and the sponge gave