Ever heard of Lepanto? Not many have. Yet it was the epic naval Battle of Lepanto, fought with bloody effect in 1571, that saved the world for Catholic Christianity and stemmed the Ottoman tide in the Mediterranean. In gratitude, Pope Pius V, who attributed victory to the power of prayer, designated the day it took place—October 7--as the Feast of the Holy Rosary, and so it has been observed to this day.
This was no run-of-the-mill ocean encounter, one ship against another. Each side in the fight manned at least 200 galleons, and the list of casualties was enormous. Both combatants risked everything on its outcome.
A battle for the island of Cyprus served as a precursor to Lepanto, and when Christians at home heard how the winning Ottomans had treated the losers they were horrified. The Christian commander surrendered at Cyprus and the victors seemed to accept at face value his terms: fair treatment for him and his men. Once in control, however, the Ottomans reneged, and that commander died an excruciatingly painful death.
That set the stage for Pope Pius’ response. Although the real battle would be mainly spiritual—a “clash of creeds,” one historian called it—the pope knew that it would take seamen and leaders to win the day. He cobbled together a “Holy League” from southern Europe—Spain, Venice, Austria, Malta (with its fabled Knights) among its membership. The overall enterprise would be under the command of the 24-year-old Don Juan of Austria.
Meanwhile the Ottomans, fresh from their victory on Cyprus, were spoiling for a fight. They were especially encouraged by the divisions in Christianity brought on by the Reformation, in full swing at the time. Their main base was at Lepanto, in Greece’s Gulf of Corinth, and it was there that the Ottoman commander, Ali Pasha, boarded his ship. It was there too, at Lepanto, that the battle would be joined.
The Holy League’s fleet had set sail from Messina in Sicily, and met the Ottomans not far from shore. The contest was cataclysmic; the fighting (much of it hand-to-hand) vicious. When it was over, the Holy League was victorious, even recovering thousands of Christian galley slaves aboard the Ottoman ships. But the cost in human life was staggering: some 15,000 Ottomans dead, 7,000 Christian sailors lost. The wounded were beyond counting (and, in a strange twist of fate, included the Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes, who would go on to writeDon Quixote).
Pope Pius V, though deeply saddened by the loss of life, was elated by the overwhelming victory. Not only would it spell an end to Ottoman expansion in the Mediterranean; it would ease implementation of the Council of Trent—which had ended nine years before. A holy man who would be declared a saint, he greeted the news enthusiastically: “Our great task at present is to thank God for the victory which he has just given to the Christian army.” Crediting the Blessed Mother for the triumph—and specifically the prayers he had urged upon all Catholics—he declared a permanent remembrance of the date. At first known as Our Lady of Victory, eventually it became the Feast of the Holy Rosary.
The men who fought at Lepanto, forgotten though they might be, were heroes in every sense of the word. This year’s feast would be more worthy if we remembered their courage once again.
(This essay is this week's “Light One Candle” column, written by Jerry Costello, of The Christophers; it is one of a series of weekly columns that deal with a variety of topics and current events.)
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