Marseille
All photos: Ella Rozett
Notre Dame de confession
(Our Lady of the Confession of Faith)
La Vierge Noire
(The Black Virgin)
Notre Dame la Verte
(Our Lady the Green One)
Notre Dame de Fue Nou (local dialect, Our Lady of New Fire)
In the crypt of the basilica Saint Victor, Place Saint-Victor, 13007 Marseille, 78 cm, 1,02m, base included; 12-13th century copy of a more ancient statue. Painted walnut wood.
Content:
1. Introduction
2. Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany
3. The Green Lady of the New Fire
5. The Legend of the Green Candles
6. Isis and the boats of the Black Madonna
Introduction
In case anybody should doubt whether this is a real Black Madonna, it is written on the mantle she wears during her feast days: “I am black but I am beautiful * Throne of Wisdom * Queen of Martyrs * Mary Mother of God”.¹
Since the end of the 13th century, this Black Virgin has been the object of fervent popular devotion during Candlemas week. Like any real Black Madonna she works miracles and her specialty seems to be bringing rain in times of drought, a frequent problem in the South of France. In the “good old days”, when calamity struck, it was time for fervent prayers and a Black Madonna procession; she took care of business.
We don’t know where Our Lady of Confession came from. One legend claims that she was washed up in the port of Marseille in the 13th century.¹ᵇ Others echo the often recounted story that Luke the evangelist sculpted her and some friend of Jesus, in this case Lazarus, brought her to Marseille.²
In any case, we can be confident that worship of the sacred feminine in Marseille goes back many centuries before this particular statue arrived. According to Ean Begg the Candlemas festival of this Black Madonna (described below) replaced a torchlight procession in honor of Persephone, the divine daughter of the goddess Cybele in 472 A.D.²ᵇ
To explain this Black Madonna’s title we have to go back many centuries in history for the basilica that houses her was Marseille's first Christian shrine.
Mary Magdalene and Mary of Bethany
Local legend of the Provence claims that Mary Magdalene was the same Mary as Mary of Bethanie, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, all close friends of Jesus. There is no Biblical or other evidence that Mary of Bethanie was the same person as Mary Magdalene. I think the claim simply stems from the pious desire to have more stories to flesh out the figure of Mary Magdalene and to be able to claim her as one’s local apostle of Christ.
The grotto of Lazarus and Mary "Magdalene" i.e. Mary of Bethanie.
Tradition says that Mary of Bethanie (think: Mary Magdalene if you are from the Provence) fled from persecution in the Holy Land to Marseille with her brother Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead, and her sister Martha. They landed in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, famous for its statue of black Sara-la-Kali, and went on to evangelize Marseille. When their persecutors caught up with them, they hid for a while outside the walls of the ancient city in the catacombs. Later Mary “Magdalene” took up permanent residence in a cave in nearby Sainte-Baume. Remnants of those burial tunnels in Marseille can be seen to this day in the crypt of Saint Victor. Among the underground tombs of the dead the friends of Jesus found a grotto, which they enlarged to serve as their “temple”. As more and more converts joined them, they expanded the underground tunnels and chapel.
That, at least, is the claim of a well researched book, published in 1864, of which I bought the last copy in Saint Victor’s gift shop in 2016.³ The modern guides to the shrine no longer mention Mary Magdalene, but they do call the grotto the Confessional of St. Lazarus. Even the old book already laments that some people completely ignore the existence of the ancient grotto, sanctified by Lazarus and “Magdalene”. It recounts that since the 17th century a certain Dr. Launoy and others fought to erase the ancient traditions concerning the crypts of St. Victor.⁴
Maybe they too realized that the legend of Mary Magdalene coming there was wishful thinking. But why didn’t they simply clarify that Mary of Bethanie may well have come to Marseille and that she was also an extremely important friend of Jesus? In the gospel of Luke, chapter 10 she becomes like the mother of Christian contemplation when Jesus says to her sister: “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things. Only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken away from her.” (verse 41-2)
For three hundred years, Christians gathered at this grotto. Lazarus was buried in it⁵ and later Saint Victor of Marseilles and his three companions. The latter four were soldiers in the Roman army and publicly denounced “idol worship”. They were killed for confessing their Christian faith around 290 A.D.
Once Christianity had become legal, Saint John Cassian (360-435 A.D.) erected a basilica over this holy burial place in 420-430 and called it Saint Victor. Its Madonna was called Our Lady of the Confession of the Martyrs, in honor of St. Victor and his companion martyrs.⁶ Attached to the church were two monasteries, one for men and one for women. Of those original buildings only the church remains. It has become the crypt of the present day basilica. The very impressive, current abbey church was built in the 11th to 14th centuries.
Before dawn on her great feast day, the procession arrives back at her church where the bishop blesses the green candles.
the view from the upper church into the crypt
The Green Lady of the New Fire
According to an obscure French alchemists’ website, Our Lady the Green One is an old title of Our Lady of the Confession.⁷ Normally I wouldn’t pay this much heed to such a site, whose claim is not seconded anywhere, but this Black Madonna certainly has a close relationship to the color green and she has another old title, which has fallen out of use. Ean Begg mentions it as: Our Lady of the Fennel or Our Lady of New Fire.⁸ “Our Lady of the Fennel” is actually a misunderstanding of the old Provence dialect words ‘fue nou’ or ‘fuech noou’. They mean ‘new fire’, not ‘fennel’ or ‘fenouil’ in modern French. She was long called Our Lady of the New Fire, because on her feast day, Candlemas, the new fire for the candles was blessed, just like nowadays the new Easter fire for the Easter candle is blessed during the Easter vigil. People would then bring fresh wicks and oil lamps and take some of this “new fire” home. This old rite of blessing a fire connected with Mary (as well as one connected with Jesus) probably survived longer at St. Victor’s church than anywhere else.⁹ It still echoes to this day in the green candles, which the faithful buy at the church on Candlemas to offer there and also take home.
What about the title the Green One? The easy explanation for it would be that she wears a green mantle, not so easily made out normally, because the colors are faded. However on her feast day, Candlemas, on February 2nd, her wooden green mantel is overlaid with a green cloth over coat and green candles are burnt and blessed in her honor. (The original Black Madonna of Candelaria was portrayed with a similar green candle, to which she ows her name.) The bishop and priests, who participate in the celebration, also wear matching green vestments.
Green Candles on Candlemas
Why green and why Candlemas on February 2nd? According to Roman legend King NumaPompilius (753–673 B.C.E.) reorganized the Roman calendar by adding two months to the existing ten and making February the last month of the year. Many cultures end each year with some kind of purification ritual that is meant to clear away any negativity of the old year so one can have a fresh start into the new. The Romans were no exception. The word februarius (February) comes from the verb februare which means "to purify". The beginning of this month was dedicated to purifying ceremonies of atonement known as the "februales".
As so often, Mary helped the Church baptize a pre-Christian custom. In the Christian calendar February 2nd marks the “the purification of the Virgin” and “the presentation of Jesus in the temple”. According to Jewish law a woman was unfit to enter the temple for 40 days after giving birth to a son and for 80 days after giving birth to a daughter. (Leviticus 12:1-5) At the end of those periods she had to bring “a burnt offering (holocaust) and a sin offering” to a priest. He would sacrifice it in atonement for her. (For the sin of having given birth?! It’s just mind-boggling what patriarchs come up with!) Only then was she purified and “clean”. According to the gospel of Luke 2:22-40 Mary and Joseph fulfilled this law. Hence the name of the feast “the purification of the Virgin” – a perfect match for the Roman ferbruales!
Fr. Jean-Pierre Ellul credits St. Isarn, an 11th century Benedictine abbot of St. Victor’s monastery, with the creation of the Catholic feast and liturgy of the purification of Mary. Cassian drew on “this double tradition, that coming from the furthest antiquity, the Pagan februales, and that inherited from a living devotion to Mary.”⁹ᵇ
The day became widely known as Candlemas, because to this day, it’s when priests bless the candles that will be used on the altar throughout the year and also any candles the faithful bring for blessings. In Marseille these candles are green, a color associated with rejuvenation and purification since antiquity. I guess in order for the human mind and soul to be rejuvenated, it must be purified.
The Legend of the Green Candles
The Green candles in the crypt of the Black Madonna during the feast of Candlemas.
There is an old, very long poem by Hyppolyte Matabon called “The Legend of the Green Candles” (La Légende Des Cierges Verts)¹⁰ It tells of a very pious, poor, young orphan named Martha, who promised Mary that she would attend mass every day of her life. Wind, rain, or snow, she would go to St. Victor’s in the first light of dawn for mass. One day, Mother Mary decided to repay her kindness. She woke her up during the night on Candlemas day and with a mysterious voice drew her to the church, which was deserted but open. In the almost completely dark crypt she finds a mysterious priest and asks him to celebrate a mass for her. Since it’s customary to pay for such specially requested masses, she offers him her only possession: a gold ring, which she places beneath a candleholder. As the mass begins, the great miracle occurs, all the white candles in the church turn to a stupendous green. After the mass, she returns home. The bell tolls 1. Come morning, she goes back to St. Victor for the usual first mass of Candlemas day. A great crowd of faithful is assembled as she speaks with the sacristan, who insists that no other mass was celebrated in the church yet that day. Martha is sure she didn’t dream the whole thing though: “So help me God, I paid for a mass early during the night with a ring I placed beneath the candleholder in the crypt and all the candles turned green!” The crowd follows her down the dark hallway; they find the ring where she had placed it, the smell of incense still in the air, and the candles of an opal white shine with a miraculous green light. All fall on their knees before the Black Madonna, the Queen of Heaven, in gratitude for the gift she gave Martha: the glistening sign and symbol of immortality. Since then, green candles are burnt at St. Victor’s on Candlemas day.
Legends are often used to justify an inexplicable occurrence or the integration of ancient Pagan customs into Catholic culture and so it seems to be here. Furthermore, the legends surrounding Black Madonnas usually have an element of empowerment of the feminine, and so it is here. The Queen of Heaven leads a poor orphan girl through the maze of a patriarchal structure and blesses the whole city through a girl on the fringe. “The Romans had a great appreciation for the color green; it was the color of Venus, the goddess of gardens, vegetables and vineyards.”¹¹
Isis and the boats of the Black Madonna
Les Navettes, the special boat-bread of the Black Madonna of Marseille
As to the Egyptian roots of the title The Green One:
The Blessed Mother inherited many titles from Isis, like Queen of Heaven, Seat of Wisdome, Mother of God, Star of the Sea, but Marseille is the only place I know of, where she may have been known as The Green One, closely reminiscent of Isis’ title ‘the Lady of Green Crops’, ‘the Green Goddess’. Interestingly, Isis also is called The Lady of Bread¹² and we see that special, sacred bread is distributed and venerated on Candlemas Day in Marseille. It used to be given out in the crypt of the basilica, but nowadays one has to purchase it just down the block, at the “Four des Navettes”, the bakery that has been making it since 1782. Regular bread and hot chocolate is given to the hungry pilgrims, who were at the quay at 5 a.m. after they come out of mass. Much appreciated, but the navettes are sacred and something people take home for protection and blessings, along with the candles and formerly the ‘new fire’.
Many say that the ‘navette’ (little boat) pastry in the form of a canoe is a symbol of the boat of Isis, the papyrus boat in which she searched all over Egypt for the body parts of her slain husband.¹³ Isis also sailed across the heavens on the solar barge (or sun boat) of the sun god Ra. And so one of her many roles was to be the goddess of navigation, just as Mary became the Star of the Sea, the protector of sailors, of whom there are many in Marseille with its important port.
Of course, most Catholics in Marseille don’t think of Isis and her boats when they buy their blessed navettes in honor of Mary’s feast day. To them they are a symbol of the boat that brought them Mary Magdalene, her companions, and the Gospel. Nonetheless, it is common for the Church in Europe to acknowledge the ancient roots of its faith. As Fr. Jean-Pierre Ellul puts it in the parish guide of St. Victor (I paraphrase): “What the Phoenicians were looking for in their goddesses, the perfect Woman, we found when Jesus, from the cross, turned to his beloved disciple (us) and said: “Behold, your mother!”¹⁴
The Feast Days of Notre Dame de Confession
The highest holidays of the Catholic Church (like Christmas and Easter) are celebrated with ‘novenas’, i.e. 9 days of prayer. In Marseille, the Candlemas feast of the Black Madonna is such a high holiday. It begins the night before (1st of February) , when the Black Madonna is brought to the church closest to the Old Port of Marseille, the Église Saint-Ferréol les Augustins, 1 Quai des Belges. A beautiful vigil is held there, when I attended in 2016, replete with Taize chanting. At 5 a.m. the next morning, Our Lady is carried to the water’s edge, where she rendezvous with her Son, represented by the Gospel. A beautiful old Bible and the archbishop of Marseille are brought to shore from the sea, in commemoration of Christianity coming to Marseille from the sea with the friends of Jesus. With much singing and praying of the rosary thousands of faithful accompany Mother and Son to her church. By 6 a.m. the archbishop blesses a wagon load of green candles in front of the church before entering and celebrating the first of countless masses to follow during the next 8 days, each special in its own way.
the Black Madonna rendezvous with the Word of God coming from the sea
Thousands cram into the basilica with thousands more outside. The archbishop and the Black Madonna preside.
The chapel of Sts. Blaise and Laurant, place of the missing well of the Black Madonna
February 3rd, the day after Candlemas, is the feast day of St. Blaise, which to this day is widely observed with a priest touching two crossed candles that were blessed the day before, to the throats of the faithful. This is because St. Blaise’s specialty is said to be the healing of the throat ever since he saved a boy from choking, back in the 4th century A.D. Ean Begg mentions a miraculous well of St. Blaise in the crypt of St. Victor. This is significant, because Black Madonna shrines very often include sacred wells. Though no trace of this one remains today, the French guide from 1864, under the heading “Chapel of Saints Blaise and Laurant” confirms: “Immeditaely next to it (the chapel) one used to see a well, called well of Saint Blaise. Every year its waters used to be blessed solemnly and used for the healing of illnesses of the throat, for which this saint is especially invoked.”¹⁵ Did this well just run dry or was it filled in and dried up on purpose, like in Chartres?
Notre Dame de la Garde
Up the hill from St. Victor is the spectacular 19th century basilica Notre Dame de la Garde, built on the foundations of an ancient fort. (Rue Fort du Sanctuaire, 13281 Marseille) For European taste it may be too young and a bit pompous kitsch, but for Americans it is a masterpiece of art with fantastic 360 degree views of Marseille and the sea. The locals too revere this church as their “bonne mère”, good mother, and often come here on August 15th, the feast of the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, a national holiday in France. It even has a blackened silver Madonna from 1823, though she does not bear the title Black Madonna. The church is full of exvoti, little model sailboats brought by sailors in thanksgiving for storms survived by the grace of God and his Mother. Worth a visit. You can take a cable car.
Notre Dame de la Garde
Blackened silver Madonna
The central dome
A few of the sailboat exvoti
Footnotes:
1. “I am black but beautiful” is a line from the Song of Songs often quoted in Black Madonna sanctuaries. This mantle includes three languages, French, Latin, and Greek, in recognition of the parish’s efforts towards a Christian unity, especially with their Orthodox brethren. This kinship goes back to John Cassian, the 4th century monk who founded St. Victor’s monastery for men and women. He lived all over the Christian world, wrote in Greek and Latin and introduced Eastern (Egyptian) monasticism into the West (France).
See Fr. Jean-Pierre Ellul, “La Chandleur a Saint-Victor: Pelerinage, traditions et coutumes” Parish Saint-Victor: 1998, pp.13 and 31 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cassian
2. Champagne et la Vierge Noire
2b. Ean Begg, The Cult of the Black Virgin, Penguin Books: 1985, p. 197
3. Notice sur les Cryptes de L’Abbaye Saint-Victor-lez-Marseille: Precise Historique Description de ces Souterrains, Typographie Veuve Marius Olive, Marseille: 1864, pp. 8 - 10. The story of the Black Madonna ending droughts is on pp.42-3
4. Ibid. p. IV-V
5. Lazarus’ remains were moved to Autun around the 9th century.
6. See the article “Candlemas at Saint Victor” on: http://www.marseille-tourisme.com/en/discover-marseille/tradition/christmas-time/
7. http://www.archerjulienchampagne.com/article-2181595.html
8. (Begg, p. 197) http://www.archerjulienchampagne.com/article-2181595.html
9. Notices sur les Cryptes, op. cit. p. 40-41.
9b. Fr. Jean-Pierre Ellul, the parish priest at St. Victor in 1998 and author of the church’s guidebook, op. cit. p. 25
10. Notices sur les Cryptes, op. cit. pp. 154-7 Here is the full text in French
11. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green#In_the_ancient_world
12. http://www.touregypt.net/isis.htm
13. http://www.egyptianmyths.net/mythisis.htm
14. Fr. Jean-Pierre Ellul, op.cit., p. 26
15. Notices sur les Cryptes, op. cit. p. 89