Our Lady of Czestochowa is an image of Mary located in Poland. The icon is also known as the Black Madonna because the image has darkened from the soot of so many votive candles burning near it. Czestochowa is one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Poland—many people visit the shrine to venerate Mary in this icon.

Tradition holds that the icon was painted by St. Luke upon wood that had been part of the table in the home of the Holy Family. It is said that the image was kept in royal palaces in Constantinople and Ukraine after St. Helen found it in Jerusalem. It came to Czestochowa in 1382 by way of a nobleman who was escaping an attack in Ukraine—he stopped to rest in the town and entrusted it to a monastery there.

In 1430, robbers looted the monastery and stole the image. In trying to remove precious stones from the icon, they smashed the wood and made slashes in the paint. When the icon was restored, the artists retained the slashes that were made on Mary’s face.

In the image, Mary’s hand points to Jesus, as she did with her whole life. Jesus holds a book of the Gospels in one hand and extends the other to the viewer in a blessing.

The image is associated with a miracle that marked a turning point in a war between Poland and Sweden in 1655. Monks and other people in the monastery were severely outnumbered by the invading Swedish forces but managed to repel the attackers with the miraculous intervention of Mary.

The image also played a large role in the devotional life of the young St. Maximilian Kolbe; he experienced a moment of conversion as a boy when he was praying in front of this image, and the experience shaped the rest of his life.

A replica of the Our Lady of Czestochowa image stands in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and it faithfully reproduces even the slash marks on Mary’s face. The image was a gift to Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., founder of Notre Dame, from the Polish Carmelite Sisters in the Shrine of St. Bridget in Rome. The sisters gave it to Father Sorin, who was superior general of the Congregation of Holy Cross at the time, “as a sign of perpetual friendship.”

Personalize and share a prayer card with this image of Our Lady of Czestochowa at our prayer card page.

Our Lady of Czestochowa, you are captured in the miraculous image of Mary venerated by Polish people–pray for us!