May 1981 Print

THE MIRACULOUS IMAGE of Our Lady of Czestochowa will celebrate in 1982 the 600th anniversary of its enthronement in that locality of southwestern Poland. Tradition has it that it is one of those likenesses of Our Lady painted by St. Luke the physician and painter at the request of the first Christians. It was painted on a wooden table used by Our Lady. Tradition further tells us that it found its way to Constantinople and later became part of the dowry of a Byzantine princess who had married a Ruthenian prince, because in A.D. 802 chronicles place it in the castle of Belz in southeastern Poland. In the second half of the fourteenth centruy, Ruthenia being then under the dominion of Louis the Hungarian, King of Poland and Hungary, the region of Belz was confided to the Polish prince Wladyslaw of Opole, whose seat is the region of Silesia in southwestern Poland.

In those times Ruthenia suffered from continuous incursions of the Tartars, and on one of those invasions the Castle of Belz was besieged by pagan hordes; Prince Wladyslaw, before the altar on which the picture of Our Lady rested, was begging her assistance when an enemy arrow struck the face of the Virgin, leaving a scar. Then, the ancient chroniclers say, broad daylight was transformed into dark night. Fear seized the Tartars. The Prince sallied forth with his knights to the open plain and overthrew the Tartar hordes.

On seeing how insecure Belz was, and wishing to avoid the possible destruction of the picture, Wladyslaw decided to transport it to Opole. And so he put the image in a splendid carriage drawn by six chargers and began the long voyage through the territories of the Polish Crown, on the way to the land of his birth, a distance of over 500 miles. They had arrived at the small village of Czestochowa, only 100 miles distant from Opole, when the powerful horses refused to take another step. Wladyslaw, perceiving in this fact a sign from heaven, went to the little chapel of the village situated on top of the hill of Jasna Gora (Clearmont), where he gave himself up to prayer. When he was overcome by sleep, Our Lady communicated her desire to him in his dream: her image had to be venerated right there, on Jasna Gora.

Without any delay, the picture was solemnly enthroned in the little church, while Wladyslaw gave orders for the construction of a church of greater dignity and a monastery beside it. In 1382 he gave it into the care of Hungarian monks of the Pauline Order, in whose hands it remains to this day.

The happy news soon spread all over the country, and the chronicles report that pilgrims began to flow into Czestochowa from all the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Crown, as well as from Bohemia and Moravia.

 

The Attack of the Hussites

Good Friday night in 1430, a band of Czech Hussites, commanded by a Polish noble, also a Hussite (in nearby Silesia, this heresy had gained many followers among the nobles), attacked the sanctuary, killing five religious, and seized the golden vessels and ornaments of the church, some relics and the image of Our Lady, loading them all in a cart. The chronicles of Jasna Gora tell us that immediately after descending the hill, the horses stopped and would not move from the place. Then one of the heretics, cursing the picture, hurled it to the ground with such force that it broke into three pieces, but the faces of Our Lady and the Infant Jesus remained intact. One of the Hussites took a sword and struck the right side of Our Lady's face twice, and when he raised his sword for the third blow, he fell, struck by a bolt of lightning. His companions fled in terror, but the chiefs of the band were caught and put to death by the sword. So, profaned by the heretics and abandoned in the slime, the holy picture was found by the Paulist friars. When they bent over to pick it up, they saw a spring of crystalline water open beneath it and wash it of the mud. In that place at the foot of Jasna Gora, was placed a wooden cross, and later the Church of St. Barbara was built there. In the interior of that church, the spring continues to gush the miraculous water sought by pilgrims and famous for the cure of eye diseases.

Then, at the request of King Wladyslaw Jagiello, the picture was taken to Cracow to be restored. The best Polish artists dedicated their talent to the task, but a miraculous fact occurred: once the restoration was complete, the paint which covered the scars left by the sword blows of the heretics, ran off. Italian artists called in later to restore it found the same phenomenon occurred with them.

As a consequence of that attack, Wladyslaw Jagiello very nearly declared war on Bohemia. The fact that Polish nobles were also involved in the episode kept him from doing so. Those nobles, however, were severely chastised, and the historians of the epoch report that all of them died violently in the year following the profanation of the holy place.

Later, toward the end of the sixteenth century, the elected King Zygmunt III Vasa (son of the Swedish king and Polish princess Catherine Jagiello) in order to give greater security to the sanctuary, built strong walls about it surrounded by a moat, and he provided a garrison maintained by the Crown. Thus Jasna Gora took on the aspect of a fortress. Against it in the following century an invasion of the Swedish heretics would break up.¹

In 1655, invited and assured of success by a disgruntled Polish noble, King Charles Gustav, the fiercely Protestant king of Sweden (a cousin of the Catholic John-Casimir, then on the Polish throne), invaded Poland. Sweden, poverty stricken and possessing a huge standing army fresh from conquests of the Thirty Years' War, needed a war to replenish its coffers. Almost the whole of Poland capitulated to King Charles Gustav, who with promises of assistance in the war against Poland's enemies in the East and professing noble motives of good will and religious tolerance, immediately proved the opposite. As news of the sacrileges of churches and convents, murders and looting, reached Czestochowa, its abbot, Father Augustine Kordecki, decided to close the doors of the small fortress against the heretic invaders and save the holy image from another desecration.

 

The Great Siege

The story of the siege of Czestochowa makes fascinating reading. The garrison consisted of seventy religious (who took no part in the actual combat); five nobles, who with their families and a few servants had taken refuge in the fortress, plus 160 infantry men—most of them local villagers. At the last moment a noble sent twelve guns and provisions to help in the defense of Jasna Gora.

This garrison withstood the siege of 4,000 men and nineteen heavy guns for thirty-eight days (November 18–December 26, 1655). General Miller exerted all his famed military skill and psychological pressures against the garrison. Eleven times parleys were held, envoys exchanged, blackmail and threats used by the Swedes. Two religious who went as spokesmen of Father Kordecki to the Swedish camp, were held as hostages under threat of execution if the fortress did not surrender. Between the parleys Jasna Gora was under fire from guns and incendiary bombs night and day.

Father Kordecki came out frequently in procession with the Blessed Sacrament, along the bastions and walls. He blessed the cannon, one by one, the cannon balls, the bullets and the barrels of powder. He encouraged all to offer their lives in the defense of the honor of the holy place and to put their trust and all their hopes in the Blessed Virgin "who in such extreme necessity would not fail with her help."

The chronicles of Czestochowa contain many testimonials from the Swedes of visions of Our Lady, which terrified them:—"What witch is this in your cloister of Czestochowa, who, covered with a blue mantle, sallies from the cloister and walks along the walls, resting from time to time on the bastions, and whose sight makes our people drop with terror, so much so, that when she appears, we have to turn our faces to the ground and protect our eyes?"

There are also testimonies of sudden fog enveloping Jasna Gora—it would appear much higher than normal; the Swedish gunners were misled and overshot their mark. Cannon balls frequently ricocheted from the walls and killed many in the Swedish ranks. Under cover of night the garrison made sallies to harass the enemy and even captured two of their guns.

The winter snow and freezing weather contributed to the defeat of the Swedes. But long before that, as soon as news of the siege became known, the whole country underwent a change of heart. The apathy of defeat was replaced by indignation and anger against the impious invaders. How dare they raise arms against the holiest of shrines! The siege of Czestochowa was the turning point of the Swedish venture in Poland—from then on nothing but defeat met their every step.

Even before the country was freed of enemy troops, King John-Casimir solemnly consecrated Poland to the Blessed Mother and proclaimed her "Queen of Poland." This was done with great ceremony in the cathedral city of Lwow in the presence of the Papal Nuncio, many bishops and nobles. The feast of Our Lady Queen of Poland is celebrated on May 3rd, which in pre-World War II Poland was a national holiday.

From time immemorial Polish knights wore on their armor the engraved image of Our Lady. This custom remained when armor was no longer worn, and many were the miraculous events of swords or bullets hitting the small heraldic shield, which bore the picture of the Blessed Mother, rather than the breast of the wearer.

The siege of Czestochowa is not the only victory over Poland's enemies attributed to the intervention of the Virgin Mary. In our century, August 15,1920, marked the beginning of the Russian communists' defeat in their invasion of Poland. The communists were intent on engulfing the whole of Europe, and with the unrest and unemployment which followed World War I, they were confident in doing just that. Communist cells existed throughout the continent. On August 13th, Warsaw was well-nigh surrounded, the diplomatic corps had already fled from the capital with the exception of the Papal Nuncio, Mgr. Ratti (who later became Pope Pius XI). In the wake of World War I Poland had just emerged free of her three neighboring oppressors and was terribly devastated. Boys of fifteen went to swell the ranks of fighting men. The situation was critical. A counterattack from the Vistula River was successful, by the grace of God, and quickly panic set in among the Russian hordes, which hugely outnumbered the Poles. The extent of the panic can be judged by enemy losses which amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand. The Poles lost fifty thousand men, while taking sixty-six thousand prisoners. The Russian soldiers reported that they saw a woman clad in white and blue in the sky above the Polish lines, that they were terrified by the apparition and that panic set in among them. Three days later the Russians were retreating on all fronts. The Battle of the Vistula (or the Miracle of the Vistula, as it is known in Poland), is called one of the eighteen decisive battles in the history of the world by military experts.

Now another battle has begun in Poland. On August 14, 1980, the Vigil of the Assumption, Polish workers went on strike.

The Italian newspaper Il Tempo of September 12, 1980, had an interview with the leader Lech Walesa. To the question "What stands at the source of your social activities?" he answered, "The Queen of Poland—Our Lady of Czestochowa."

The faithful of the world hope that August 14, 1980, may have been the turning point in the fortunes of the Red Dragon, by the grace of the Virgin Mary, Queen of the World.

 

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1. The text in italic has been quoted from Professor de Oliveira's commentary on "The Siege of Czestochowa."

 

The author of this article is a native of Poland and has visited Czestochowa. She met her husband in England. They now reside in Houston, Texas, with their two sons.