“The story of Nossa Senhora is one of resilience and faith.” You might be wondering why a stone image of Our Lady holds such significance in Porto, Portugal. Well, it all goes back to the Reconquista, a period when Christian forces pushed back against the Moors who controlled the Iberian Peninsula. Around the year 990, a French nobleman named Munio Viegas led an army of knights from Gascony to fight the Moors in Porto. These knights brought with them a stone image of Our Lady, originally from Vendôme. After defeating the Moors, Porto’s inhabitants consecrated their city to the Virgin Mary, and named Our Lady of Vendôme their patroness. Her image was placed over one of the city’s main gates, which was appropriately called the Door of Vendôme. The original image of Our Lady of Vendôme, also known as Nossa Senhora de Vandoma, is now housed in the Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady in Porto.
Nossa Senhora
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