Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

"Pray for us and for Muslims"

Algiers (Algeria) (1872)

Perched on a cliff overlooking the Bay of Algiers stands the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa, Notre-Dame d'Afrique, a beautiful example of Neo-Byzantine architecture. But what is most moving about this church is not its dome or its location facing the sea, but rather the words engraved in the apse, behind the altar, which encapsulate the soul of the place: "Our Lady of Africa, pray for us and for the Muslims."

That inscription, repeated in all sources, is presented as a sign of prayer and fraternity. The basilica is visited by Christians and by many Muslims, who call Mary "Lalla Mariam," that is, "Lady Mary." In a country with an overwhelming Muslim majority, the Catholic shrine does not erect walls: it asks the Virgin to intercede for all, Christians and Muslims, like a mother who makes no distinction between her children.

Devotional tradition recounts that the cult began very simply. Around 1846, two laywomen, Margarita Bergezio and Anna Cuiquien, are said to have placed an image of the Virgin Mary on an olive tree. From that humble gesture, a temporary chapel was built in 1857, and the current basilica was completed in 1872. The bronze image of the Virgin was crowned in 1876.

It is important to distinguish between documented and transmitted information. The existence of the basilica, its belonging to the Archdiocese of Algiers, its location overlooking the bay, the inscription on the apse, and its consecration in 1872 are all well established. The scene of the two women and the olive tree as the origin of the sanctuary belongs to local tradition. One popular source claims that the image was brought to Algeria in 1840 by Monsignor Dupuch, but this information is not corroborated by a primary ecclesiastical source, and there is no archival record detailing, for example, exactly who composed the famous inscription.

The sources consulted do not establish a specific historical link between this sanctuary and the Rosary beyond its profound Marian significance. What does remain, and is worth more than many dates, is that lesson of fraternity: a Virgin venerated by two peoples who pray, sometimes unknowingly, to the same Mother.