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Appendix II to the Messages of the Lady of All Nations
Appendix II
The painting of the Lady of all Nations
The image of the Lady of All Nations was painted in 1951
by the German painter Heinrich Repke and placed in a chapel on an estate in
Germany, remaining there until the end of 1953. The painting was then transferred
to the Netherlands and provisionally placed in the rectory of the Dominican
Church of St. Thomas, on Rijn Street in Amsterdam. At the end of 1954, the pastor
of this church received permission from the diocesan bishop of Haarlem-Amsterdam,
Bishop Huibers, to place the painting in the church’s Lady Chapel. The solemn
installation took place on December 19, 1954.
On May 31, 1955, the visionary Ida Peerdeman received her
51st message from the Lady of All Nations in the Lady Chapel of the
crowded St. Thomas Church. Negative reactions arrived at the Diocesan Office.
Some people feared that the church might develop into a place of pilgrimage—something
they wanted to avoid at all cost.
On June 10, 1955, the bishop withdrew his permission, and
the parish priest had to remove the painting. The bishop stated as his reason:
public devotion could not be permitted pending inquiry into the authenticity
of the apparitions. Everything connected with the devotion was removed from
the church. The painting was relegated to the rectory—first placed in the library
and then in the cellar. It remained there until 1966.
The painting next found welcome in the little Ville d’Avray
Church near Paris (1966-1967). It then returned to the Netherlands—first to
The Hague, in the monastery of the Holy Sacrament Fathers (1967-1969), then
to their monastery in Oegstgeest (1969-1970), and finally to a house on Diepenbrock
Street in Amsterdam. The cellar of this house was transformed into a provisional
chapel, and the painting was brought there on June 16, 1970. On August 15, 1976,
the present-day chapel was consecrated. The image, having wandered for twenty-five
years, now arrived at its second-to-last destination. Its future and final destination
was foretold by the Lady herself in her fifty-second message: “a separate chapel”
in the “house of the Lord Jesus Christ”, that is, the future Lady of all Nations
Church—to be built in Amsterdam at Europa Square.
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