The most sacred icons of the Catholic Church are the Black Madonna and Christ child, which are found in Europe's most venerated shrines and cathedrals. Each year, hundreds of thousands of European pilgrims ritually humble themselves before the image of Black Mary and her child Jesus at Black Madonna sites throughout France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and other Catholic countries. Many Black Madonna statues have the black paint literally kissed off of their hands and feet. In Poland, the Church encourages believers to pray to the Black Madonna of Czestochowka every morning before rising. It is reported that Pope John Paul follows this ritual. Time Magazine (June 11, 1979) reported on Popelaul II's visit to Czestochowka's holiest shrine, which prominently displays "The Lady" known for centuries as the Black Madonna. At Our Lady of Koden (Poland), there are statues of white saints carrying pictures of Black Madonnas. Pilgrims throughout the ages have visited Black Madonna sites and left inspired, confident, relieved, or healed of their afflictions. Today, there are over 300 documented Black Madonna sites in France alone! 1 Sometimes they are hidden awaken vaults, while the public is shown Madonnas with European features.
In the hard-to-find classic, Anacalypsis, historian Godfrey Higgens writes, "...in all the Romish countries of Europe, in France, Italy, Germany, etc., the God Christ, as well as his mother, are described in their old pictures and statues to be black. The infant God in the arms of his black mother, his eyes and drapery white, is himself perfectly black. If the reader doubt my word, he may go to the cathedral at Moulins -to the famous chapel of the Virgin at Loretto ...the whiteness of the eyes and teeth, and the studied redness of the lips, are very observable... There is scarcely an old church in Italy where some remains of the worship of the BLACK VIRGIN and BLACK CHID are not to be met with. Very often the black figures have given way to white ones, and in these cases the black ones, as being held sacred, were put into retired places in the churches, but were not destroyed... 2
The Black Madonnas originally all had Africoid features before most of them were destroyed by iconoclasts. When they were replaced, the artists retained the dark skin color but, not being familiar with real Afrikans, gave European features to the paintings. In cases where originals have survived, you may witness Africoid features on Mary and her child Jesus, such as the Black Madonna of Nuria, Spain - called "the Queen of the Pyrenees." Russia's remarkable legacy of Black Madonnas and other Christian icons of dark skin is evidenced in the book, Russian Icons by Vladimir Ivanov, including the feature story of the Spring 1994 issue of Russian Life magazine, graced with a Black Madonna on its cover.
1) Watts, 22.
2) Higgens, v! 138
Actually the worship of the virgin, Black "Mother of God" with her God-begotten child, far predates Christianity and prevailed throughout the ancient world.
Historians recognize that the statue of the Egyptian Goddess Isis with her child Horus in her arms was the first Madonna and Child. They were renamed Mary and Jesus when Europe was forcibly Christianized. The worship of Isis and Horus was especially popular in ancient Rome. "Roman legions carried this figure of Black Isis holding the Black infant Horus all over Europe where shrines were established to her. So holy and venerate were these shrines that when Christianity invaded Europe, these figures of the Black Isis holding the Black Horus were not destroyed but turned into figures of the Black Madonna and Child. Today these are still the holiest shrines in Catholic Europe." 1 Titles such as Our Lady, The Great Mother, are the same titles attributed to Isis! The word "Madonna" itself is from mater domina, a title used for Isis! The month of May, which was dedicated to the heathen Virgin Mothers, is also the month Mary, the Christian Virgin. 2
Incredulously, many contemporary white authors seem not to link or acknowledge the Black Madonna's color with her Afrikan origin,
although their ancestors did without hesitation. Some flatly deny any
racial connection. Instead, they come up with various reasons and sophisticated explanations (the "dark" phase of the moon, fertility of the earth, etc.) -any excuse except Melanin - to explain why the Lady is portrayed black.
This is evident in a number of books by white authors discussing Black Madonnas. Perhaps whites have become so enmeshed in the webs of false history woven by their predecessors that many are blind to the truth, unable to see or discern even glaring evidence of Afrikan historical presence. If white writers of today are indeed this ignorant - or pretending ignorance - of the Black Madonna's Afrikan origin, let them read the works of a few rare honest white scholars which preceded them, such as Gerald Massey, T.W. Doane, Godfrey Higgins and Kersey Graves. These writers knew and wrote the truth. This is amazing given the exceedingly overtly racist times in which they lived. Yet today, official white establishment does not and will not acknowledge the Afrikan genesis of their whitewashed religions.
In Bible Myths, T.W. Doane devotes a chapter to The Worship of the Virgin Mother, where he candidly states, "The whole secret of the fact of these early representations of the Virgin Mary and Jesus - so called-being black, crowned, and covered with jewels, is that they are of pre-Christian origin; they are Isis and Horus... baptized anew." 3
1) Saskana, 53-54.
2) Doane, 335.
3) Ibid., 337.
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Last modified:February 19, 1999
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