The victory of Lepanto and the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary

In the 16th century, the rapidly expanding Ottoman Empire posed a constant threat to Western Europe. During an Ottoman campaign to acquire the Venetian island of Cyprus, amid tensions, in May 1571 Pope Pius V succeeded in forming the Holy League, an alliance between Spain, Venice and Malta, which he solemnly blessed in St Peter's Basilica. An imposing fleet was assembled and entrusted to Don Juan of Austria, the brother of Philip II of Spain. To implore divine protection for this fleet, Pope Pius V ordered a solemn jubilee, a fast and the public recitation of the rosary.

The allied Christian forces of the Holy League and the Ottoman Turks engaged the fight on October 7, 1571, in the Gulf of Lepanto, just outside the Straits of Corinth. This decisive naval battle pitted 213 Spanish and Venetian galleys against around 300 Turkish ships, with almost a hundred thousand men on each side. The Christian fleet won a total victory thanks to its heavy onboard artillery. Almost all the enemy galleys were captured or sunk, and the Turkish admiral Ali Pasha was beheaded. Fifteen thousand Christian prisoners were freed, while barely a third of the Turkish fleet was able to set sail again, shattering the legend of the invincibility of the Muslim fleet.

It is said that on the evening of the battle, Pope Pius V rushed from his study to the window, where he seemed to be contemplating a grand vision. Then, turning to the prelates around him, he is said to have declared: "Let us give thanks to God, our army is victorious!" News of the victory did not reach Rome until nineteen days later, on October 26, confirming the revelation made to the Sovereign Pontiff. After the Battle of Lepanto, Pius V added a further invocation to the litanies of the Blessed Virgin: "Help of Christians, pray for us!"

Within the Catholic community, the victory at Lepanto contributed to the rapid growth of devotion to the rosary, propagated by St Dominic, to whom the Mother of God had made the following promise: "Whatever you ask for through my rosary, you will obtain!"

The Battle of Lepanto, unknown artist, 16th century / © CC0/wikimedia/National Maritime Museum

Reasons to believe:

In response to the Pope's appeal, the whole of Christendom consecrated itself in a special way to the Virgin Mary, by praying the rosary. The highly improbable outcome turned into a resounding victory for the Christian fleet through providential circumstances, and all the protagonists recognised the occurrence of a divine intervention.

This was the case not only for the Christians, but also for the Turks, who noted in their chronicles that "the Imperial Fleet had confronted the fleet of the impure Infidels, and God's will turned against it".

After this battle, the feast of Our Lady of Victory, unique to the Western Church, was instituted by Saint Pius V to commemorate the great victory of Lepanto. Twenty-one years later, Pope Gregory XIII gave this feast its current name of Our Lady of the Rosary, commemorated every first Sunday in October in all churches.

The certainty of having been helped by the Virgin Mary led Christians to rely on her again during the other decisive battle that halted Muslim expansion on earth, in Vienna on September 12, 1683.

Pope Clement XI extended the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary to the universal Church because of the new victory over the Turks won through the same intercession at Peterwardein on August 5, 1716.

Summary:

From 1299 onwards, the Ottoman Empire, which saw itself as the armed wing of Islam, began to expand in Anatolia, and then in all directions: In 1453, the Turks under Mehmed the Conqueror succeeded in taking Constantinople, putting an end to the Byzantine Empire, which had lasted for over a thousand years; in 1517, the Ottoman Empire conquered Egypt and Syria under the reign of Selim I; in 1526, the Battle of Mohács in Hungary led to the death of the Hungarian King Louis II and the start of Ottoman expansion in Central Europe (which tended to spread westwards towards Rome). Nothing seemed able to stop this battle-hardened and numerically superior army. But in 1529 and 1532, Suleiman was defeated first in Vienna, then in Malta, which he tried to take in 1565. In 1570, however, he succeeded in taking Cyprus from the Republic of Venice after a brutal conquest. More than 20,000 inhabitants of Nicosia were put to death, something that moved European Catholics, especially as raids multiplied along the coasts of Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, Spain and Provence, kidnapping women and children, who were then sold on slave markets and forcibly converted.

The Ottoman Empire was building up its military fleet at this time, in an attempt to establish itself throughout the Mediterranean, to the detriment of the Italian cities. It succeeded for a time. It was at this point that Pope Pius V intervened and, gathering nations in a "Holy League", mobilised and succeeded in forming an alliance between Spain, Venice, the Papal States, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, the Order of St John of Jerusalem and a number of other powers - without France, who had been shamefully allied with Istanbul in 1536, and without England, who had turned a deaf ear to the Pope's appeals.

The battle promised to be difficult, huge and decisive: The fleet of the Holy League consisted in 206 galleys and 6 galleasses (from the Republic of Venice, the Spanish Empire, the Republic of Genoa, the Papal States, the Order of Saint Stephen and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Savoy, the Knights of Malta and some private ships), carrying 28,750 soldiers and 40,000 sailors and galley slaves, against the Ottoman fleet, which had a total of 208 galleys supported by 64 fustes and 53 galleots with 50,000 sailors and 27,000 soldiers.

At this decisive moment, the Pope, a former Dominican, entrusted himself in a special way to the Virgin Mary and asked all Catholics to recite the Rosary every day for the success of Christian arms, the defeat of the infidels and the end of the Muslim threat. This request followed on from the Mother of God's promise to Saint Dominic: "Whatever you ask for through my rosary, you will obtain". A great wave of prayer swept across Europe.

Against all expectations, thanks to an improbable combination of circumstances that enabled the Turks to be blocked in the Straits of Corinth and a sudden drop in the wind that prevented them from manoeuvring, the Christian victory was total and would become a major event. On the Ottoman side, 170 galleys were sunk or captured, 30,000 men were killed or wounded, 3,000 were taken prisoner and more than 15,000 Christian galley slaves were freed. Only around thirty galleys, as well as a dozen fustes and galiotes, escaped the debacle by fleeing to Lepanto with a crew of 12,000 men. On the Christian side, the material losses were slight in terms of ships, but significant in human terms: only 10 galleys were sunk and all the captured galleys were recaptured, with the exception of one; on the other hand, the human toll was heavy: 8,000 men died during the fighting and 21,000 others were wounded, many of whom did not survive being transported to Corfu.

"It is worth recalling the prediction made by the Holy Pope on the evening of the great day of October 7, 1571. From six o'clock in the morning until the approach of night, the battle was going on between the Christian and Muslim fleets. Suddenly the pontiff, moved by a divine impulse, looked fixedly up at the sky; he stood in silence for a few moments, then, turning to those present he declared: "Let us give thanks to God! Victory is for the Christians!" Soon the news reached Rome, and it was not long before the whole of Christendom knew that a pope had once again saved Europe. The defeat at Lepanto dealt the Ottoman power a blow from which it has never recovered; the era of its decline dates from that famous day," Dom Prosper Guéranger wrote in L’Année liturgique (1841-1866).

The following year, the Pope instituted October 7 as the feast of Our Lady of Victory, which later became Our Lady of the Rosary, in gratitude for Mary's intervention with God in securing the victory.

This defeat was of considerable importance to the Ottomans, who had not lost a major naval battle since the 15th century. It was mourned by them as an act of divine will, with contemporary chronicles recalling that "the Imperial Fleet had confronted the fleet of the impure Infidels, and the will of God turned against it". This was also the Christians' sentiment: they gave heartfelt thanks to the Virgin Mary, who was again successfully prayed to in the battles that followed, in Vienna and elsewhere, to counter Muslim expansion.

Some historians consider this naval battle to be the most important in terms of its consequences since that of Actium (31 BC), where Octavian (Augustus) defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra, putting an end of the Roman civil wars.

Olivier Bonnassies

Beyond reasons to believe:

It is always a good and wise idea to entrust or consecrate onself to the Virgin Mary, in imitation of Christ who placed himself entirely in her hands as a little babe.

Going further:

Article "The Battle that Saved the Christian West" by Christopher Check published in This Rock magazine in March 2007 (Volume 18 number 3)

More information:

Lepanto by G. K. Chesterton, Ignatius Press; First Edition (March 1, 2004)
The Galleys at Lepanto by Jack Beeching (Scribner, 1983 – out of print; used copies available online)
Ten Dates Every Catholic Should Know by Diane Moczar (Sophia Institute, 2006)