Our Lady of Perpetual Help
title for the Virgin Mary and a 15th century icon
Our Mother of Perpetual Succour (Latin: Nostra Mater de Perpetuo Succursu), colloquially known as Our Lady of Perpetual Help), is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a 15th-century Byzantine icon and a purported Marian apparition. The image was enshrined in the Church of San Matteo in Via Merulana from 1499 to 1798 and is today permanently enshrined in the Church of Saint Alphonsus of Liguori in Rome, where the novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help is prayed weekly.
Pope Pius IX granted a pontifical decree of canonical coronation along with its official formalized title Nostra Mater de Perpetuo Succursu on 5 May 1866. The Latin Patriarch of Constantinople, Cardinal Ruggero Luigi Emidio Antici Mattei, executed the rite of coronation on 23 June 1867.
The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer serve as custodians of the icon. The image is alternatively named as the Virgin of the Passion in Eastern Orthodoxy. Novena prayers are held before its feast day on 27 June every year. Due to promotion by the Redemptorist priests, the image has gained popularity among Western and Eastern Catholics. Modern reproductions are often displayed in residential homes, commercial establishments, and public transportation.
History of the Marian title
The Cretan image originated as an Eastern Orthodox icon of the Virgin of the Passion called Amolyntos which depicted the Madonna and Child along with two angels carrying the Holy Instruments of the Passion of Jesus Christ.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Our Lady of Perpetual Help” as title for the Virgin Mary and a 15th century icon. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q178754. The Library of Congress control number is sh96003613. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1499, 1798, 1866 and 1867.
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This entry incorporates text from “Our Lady of Perpetual Help” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.