Afghan Muslim Desecrates The Famous Black Madonna of Switzerland in front of Praying Christians

👹 An Afghan asylum-seeker in Switzerland entered the Shrine of Our Lady of Einsiedeln southeast of Zurich and vandalized the famous statue of the Black Madonna.

The historic statue, which dates back to the 15th century, was slightly damaged. Einsiedeln Abbey described the incident as an “act of violence” and expressed its gratitude that no one was injured. Many worshipers were emotionally upset after the incident.

He is said to have burst into the church service in the parish chapel on Saturday and attacked the statue of the Virgin Mary, the Tagesanzeiger newspaper reported. The Afghan beat the Black Madonna and undressed her. According to reports, he completed his performance by placing the crown of the Virgin Mary on his head.

Here is more background on the Black Madonna of the Dark Forest.

After a fire in 1465 this gothic standing mother and child replaced a 9th-10th century Romanesque Seat of Wisdom Madonna lost in the flames. Baby Jesus holds a bird in his left hand. According to the local monks this eludes to an apocryphal story in which Jesus as a young child resurrected a dead bird.

In Jungian psychology the Dark Mother is an archetype that is meant to help us, in a healthy way, to integrate into our psyche all that we fear. The famous Black Madonna of Einsiedeln, whose shrine is close to where C.G. Jung taught, seems to confirm that.

Around the year 825 a German monk called Meinrad (about 799-861) became the abbot of a monastery near Zürich. But soon the holy man was drawn to live the life of a hermit. So he moved into the ‘finster Wald’, i.e. the deep, ominously dark, forest, the quintessential scary place of German language tales. The only thing he took with him on this journey into everything scary was a dark statue of Mother Mary. – To this day the Madonna of Einsiedeln is referred to as Our Lady of the (Ominously) Dark Forest, as if to remind us that when we set out to face our deepest fears, it is good to be accompanied by a dark mother.

After Meinrad had spent thirty three years in the wilderness, two robbers came upon his hermitage. The saint knew their evil intentions, yet he welcomed them with open arms, gave them food and clothes. He only had one request: “When you have killed me, please light one candle at my feet and one at my head.” They proceeded to club him to death, but as soon as they had placed the candles according to Meinrad’s wish they lit up by themselves. Then the two murderers realized that they had just killed a great saint and fled in horror. Now Meinrad had two pet black crows as his companions, who had witnessed the deed and were known to the people in the area. They flew around the evildoers, making a racket, until the men were apprehended and “brought to justice”, i.e. hanged.

Maybe because of this violent end, nobody wanted to have anything to do with Meinrad’s hermitage for at least 40 years. It was maintained only by the will of God until other monks were finally drawn there. By 934 enough hermits lived around Meinrad’s old cell with the Black Madonna that it was decided to build a full fledged monastery.