Ever since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, analysts picking apart Vladimir Putin’s motives and messaging in regards to the war have looked to religion for a few of the answers. Putin’s nationalist vision paints Russia as a defender of traditional Christian values against a liberal, secular West.
Putin’s Russia, nevertheless, is simply the most recent in a centurieslong lineup of countries using religion to bolster their political ambitions. As a Jesuit priest and scholar of Catholicism, I’ve seen in my research on nationalism and religion how patriotic loyalties and spiritual faith easily borrow each other’s language, symbols and emotions.
Western Christianity, including Catholicism, has often been enlisted to fire up patriotic fervor in support of nationalism. Historically, one typical aspect of the Catholic approach is linking devotion to the Virgin Mary with the interests of the state and military.
The birth of a belief
An Egyptian papyrus fragment from the fourth century is the primary clear evidence of Christians’ praying to the Virgin Mary. The transient prayer, which seeks Mary’s protection in times of trouble, is written in the primary person plural – using language like “our” and “we” – which suggests a belief that Mary would reply to groups of individuals in addition to individuals.
That conviction appeared to grow in the next centuries. After the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in A.D. 312, the brand new faith developed an in depth relationship along with his empire, including a belief that Mary looked with particular favor on the capital city of Constantinople.
Photo by PHAS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Political and spiritual leaders asked the Virgin for victory in battle and shelter from plagues. In A.D. 626, Constantinople was besieged by a Persian navy. Christians believed that their prayers to the Virgin destroyed the invading fleet, saving town and its inhabitants. The Akathist hymn, which has been prayed in each the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches ever since, gives Mary the military title “Champion General” in thanks for that victory.
In the Catholic West, military successes akin to European victories over the Ottoman Empire were attributed to Mary’s intervention. Her blessing has been sought on imperialist endeavors, including Spain’s conquest of the Americas.
Even today, Mary holds the title of general within the armies of Argentina and Chile, where she is taken into account a national patroness. The same association between Marian devotion and patriotism might be present in many Latin American countries.
National symbol
Off the battlefield, many Catholic cultures have historically felt they’d a special relationship with Mary. In 1638, King Louis XIII formally dedicated France to the Virgin Mary. Popular belief interpreted the next birth of the long run Louis XIV as Mary’s miraculous reward, after 23 years of waiting for a male heir.
About 20 years later, Polish King Jan II Kazimierz consecrated his country to Mary amid a war. Both acts reflected church and political leaders’ beliefs that their countries had a sacred mission and divine approval for his or her political ambitions.
When these sorts of beliefs develop into widespread in a society, many scholars would label them religious nationalism – though there may be a long-standing debate about when affection for one’s country becomes “nationalism.” There is widespread consensus, though, that religion is one of the crucial common elements of nationalism, and lots of nationalist projects have invoked Mary’s blessing.
Polish territory, for instance, was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria for greater than a century. But Polish Catholics continued to deal with Mary as “Queen of Poland.” Her title asserted the existence of the Polish people as a nation. And it implied that efforts to reestablish Poland as a sovereign country had a heavenly helper.
Similarly, within the nineteenth century, each Queen Victoria and the Virgin Mary were referred to in several contexts as “Queen of Ireland,” expressing two rival visions of Ireland: a part of the Protestant United Kingdom, or a separate and essentially Catholic country.
John Elk III/The Image Bank via Getty Images
Many different movements have used the figure of the Virgin to support their agendas. In colonial Mexico, the figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe, one title for Mary, was originally interpreted as being a champion of the “criollos,” native-born inhabitants of Spanish descent. During the 1810-21 War of Mexican Independence, “la Guadalupana” figured on the banners of the “independista” forces. The Spanish army, meanwhile, adopted the “Virgin of Los Remedios,” one other title for Mary, as their very own patroness. She would later be invoked in support of Indigenous people and mestizos, individuals with each Indigenous and Spanish ancestry.
Mary is invoked not only by nationalist causes. Sometimes she is inspiration for countercultural or protest movements, from the pro-life cause to Latina feminists. Labor leader Cesar Chavez placed the image of Guadalupe on banners as his organization marched for farmworkers’ rights.
Mary’s future
All these uses draw on the traditional belief in Mary’s power to intervene in times of trouble. However, ideological, political and particularly military ambitions and spiritual sentiment are a volatile mix. As the present war in Ukraine shows, allegiance to 1’s nation, especially when it claims Christian inspiration, can encourage each imperialist expansionism and heroic resistance to it.
This makes a greater understanding of non secular nationalism urgently essential, especially for the church. Twentieth- and Twenty first-century popes have condemned aggressive nationalism but haven’t defined it clearly.
In cultures which are largely secularized, appeals for Mary’s protection or claims that she has a special relationship with anyone nation at the moment are prone to seem archaic, outlandish or sectarian. But what I do know of each Marian devotion and national identity has convinced me that ancient patterns often survive and reassert themselves in recent times and places.
Even where the practice of Catholicism is in decline, Mary’s cultural significance stays strong. And religion continues to be an everyday element of many nationalist agendas.
My guess is that we’ve not seen the last of the warrior Virgin.
