Mary who Unties the Nudos

"María Desatanudos" · Augsburg (Germany)

From a Baroque picture of Augsburg was born one of the most widespread Marian devotions of today: Mary who, with Mother's patience, unleashes the knots that enroll our life. Pope Francis spread it all over the world.

Origin and history

The apvocation is born from a baroque oil painted around 1700 by Johann Georg Melchior Schmidtner, which is venerated in the church of San Pedro am Perlach, in Augsburg. The image represents the Virgin, standing on the moon and surrounded by angels, unleashing the knots of a long white tape. The background is a pious episode of the Langenmantel family: a marriage in crisis that, through Mary's intercession, saw its knots "unleashed."

Although the image is ancient, its world spread is recent: the then priest Jorge Mario Bergoglio - future Pope Francis - met it in Augsburg in the 1980s and took devotion to Argentina, from where it spread throughout Hispanoamerica through novies, prints and copies of the painting.