Fátima hosts this week congress on the Patroness of Portugal — DNOTICIAS.PT
The 375th anniversary of the Coronation of Nossa Senhora da Conceição as Patroness of Portugal will be marked, from Thursday to Saturday, in Fátima, with the international congress “Woman, Mother and Queen”.
The congress, according to the Sanctuary, “reflecting on Mariology, the representations of Mary in the art and culture of Western peoples”, and is held by the Institute of the Patroness of Portugal for the Studies of Mariology (IPPEM), in cooperation with the Sanctuary of Fatima.
“The congress (…) will be a forum for comprehensive study, in themes, visions and approaches, through different contributions related to the studies of Mariology, Theology and the Bible, Popular Religiosity, Associations of the Faithful and Religious Orders (…), Canon Law, Anthropology and Sociology, the Art and History of the Church, the History of Portugal and even Universal History”, said the Sanctuary.
Among the figures for the Academy for the New Evangelization at the congress, the highlight for the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, Rino Fisichella, the president of the Pontifical for the International Congress, Stefano Cechin.
In the three days of the plastic works, five sessions were held on the themes “Historiographies: studies on a theme”, “Biblical Foundations and Parenetics”, “Institutional and artistic representations”, “Marian marks in the culture of peoples” and “Popular Religion, speeches theological and cultural experiences”.
The second day of the congress will be marked with the presentation of the work “Precious Crown of Our Lady of Fátima: the jewels and the bullet”, coordinated by Marco Daniel Duarte and Ana Rita Santos, from the Museum of the Sanctuary of Fátima.
This edition of the Sanctuary of Fátima, which integrates Art and Heritage, shows, through the analysis of different pieces, “one of the most important editions of contemporary Portuguese art and, as well, due to its umbilical relationship with the popes, one of the most important pieces of contemporary Catholicism”.
In the preface to this, the President of the Republic underlines that “for all Portuguese – Catholics or other books exhibited, believers or not profiled in Fátima, those not espousing any Faith – because agnostics or atheists -, for all of them, Fátima cannot constitute a national, or rather national-universal, undeniable reality”.
According to the president of the organization of the congress, the event “will bring news” about the Marian cult in the country.
Historian Marco Daniel Duarte recalls that “it has been a long time since Portugal has held a congress specifically dedicated to the Marian theme” and this has a program based “on several thematic axes, from historical issues, which are normally known, but from of new news historians will bring news about the Marian cult in Portugal.
“But also from the different axes, such as the biblical axis, fundamental to understand this cult, the axis linked to identity, the construction of a Marian linked to our country – we say that the country is the Land of Santa Maria, a designation that comes from the Middle Ages – and then, at the level of artistic representations, institutional representations, many streets in our country dedicated to Our Lady”, are underlined by the director of the Department of Studies of the Sanctuary of Fátima.
On the other hand, it is “to also bring the theme to an objective as current objects of the sanctuaries, where the concern with what are considered objects that are believers, but also that are not considered the believers and that visit the sanctuaries with intentions merely tourist”.
On Sunday, the 27th, in Vila Viçosa, and also within the scope of the congress programme, the exhibition of the three crowns of Our Lady in Portugal is planned – Nossa Senhora da Conceição (Vila Viçosa), Sameiro) and Fátima.
In Portugal, the 8th of December is a religious holiday, marking the day of the Immaculate Conception, national patron saint, but for many the history that began on March 25, 1646, with D. João IV is unknown.
King deeply, monarch builds “His Kingdoms and Lord Gratitude” to Our Lady of Conceição, in a sculpture existing in the church that he had heard, centuries before, Nuno Viçosa Pereira had ordered for Our Lady to have her prayers in the battles of Atoleiros (1384), Aljubarrota ( 1385) and Valverde (1386).
On that distant March 25, 1646, D. João IV placed his own crown on the image, in gratitude for having regained Portugal’s independence from the Spaniards.
In addition to being patron saint, Nossa Senhora da Conceição was the highest queen of Portugal and, from then on, no other Portuguese king or queen wore a crown on their head. The royal crown, in some circumstances, appeared on a pillow next to the monarch.
The congress “Mulher, Mãe e Rainha” was scheduled for 2021, but was postponed to this year, due to the covid-19 pandemic.