Our Lady of Europe

Our Lady of Europe
Statue of Our Lady of Europe at the Cathedral of St. Mary the Crowned, Gibraltar.
Venerated in	Gibraltar Europe
Major shrine	Shrine of Our Lady of Europe
Feast	5 May (Europe Day) since 1979; previously it was celebrated on 30 May and 15 August
Patronage	Gibraltar

Our Lady of Europe (Spanish: Nuestra Señora de Europa or Virgen de Europa) is a title given to the Blessed Virgin Mary as patroness of Gibraltar. The entire European continent was consecrated under the protection of Our Lady of Europe in the early 14th century from the Shrine in Gibraltar where devotion still continues to this day, over 700 years on.

Together with Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Our Lady is a Catholic patron saint of Gibraltar.

The peninsula now known as Gibraltar was at one time called Calpe. Gibraltar takes its name from the phrase Gibel Tarik, which means "the Mountain of Tarik", and commemorates the capture of the peninsula by Tarik Ibn Zayid in 710. Moslem troops built a fortress and a mosque at Europa Point at the southernmost part of Gibraltar, located just across from the North African coast.

In 1309, King Ferdinand IV of Castile took Gibraltar, driving the Moslem troops back across the strait to Africa. The King converted the ancient mosque into a Christian Shrine. The Moslems again captured Gibraltar 24 years later in 1333. In 1462 King Henry IV recaptured Gibraltar and restored the devotion to Our Lady of Europe initiated by his grandfather, Ferdinand, once again transforming the ancient mosque into a Christian Shrine.

Ceuta, on the southern shore of the Strait of Gibraltar, had been captured in 1415 by the Portuguese, under King John I. In 1421 the King's son, Henry the Navigator, sent a Holy Virgin's statue to Ceuta in order to consecrate Africa to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the invocation of Our Lady of Africa. That way, each of the two Pillars of Hercules was the site of a Marian shrine, consecrating both continents to Our Lady.