Our Lady of Perpetual Help

“Our Lady of Perpetual Help” — also known as “The Virgin of the Passion” — is a motif which originated relatively late in Marian iconography. The image must have touched a string in people’s hearts, since it spread quickly from Crete, where it appeared for the first time in the last half of the 15th century, to both the Eastern and Western churches. There are several versions of this motif which combine both the Nativity of Christ and his suffering.