Our Lady of Lujan: A link between Argentina and the UK

The Bishops of the Armed Forces of the UK and Argentina exchanged the statue of Our Lady of Lujan, which was taken to the UK during the Falklands War. This historic exchange took place at the end of the General Audience on October 30, 2019, and Pope Francis blessed the two images of Our Lady of Lujan.

The original statue of this Name of the Virgin Mary, Patroness of Argentina, will return to Argentina and a copy, made by Argentines, will be taken to the Catholic Cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint George in Aldershot, England.

The image of the Madonna of Lujan, which presided over the papal audience, is a copy of the 1630 original of the statue of the Madonna of Lujan, which was in the Falklands War and, after 37 years, the exchange of the images took place between the Military Bishop of Argentina, Monsignor Santiago Olivera and the UK’s Monsignor Paul Mason.

According to the English Episcopal Conference, when the Argentine troops invaded the Falkland Islands in April of 1982, they took the original copy of the statue of the Madonna of Lujan of 1630, which is in the Basilica of Lujan in Argentina.

The Argentine troops left the image in the church of Port Stanley, and the English took it to the UK and placed it in the Catholic Military Cathedral of Saint Michael and Saint George in Aldershot.

Since then, the figure of Our Lady of Lujan has stayed there as a place of prayer offered for the fallen on both sides.

Adapted from Zenit