In an era of “Clash of Civilizations” and “Guerre Fratricide” finding a 400-year-old fresco in your local church, depicting a bloodthirsty Madonna dropping bombs on a Muslim flotilla, makes a certain impression.
Really? Since when did the holy mother of Jesus handle explosives? Isn’t she always and only supposed to be a harbinger of peace? This militant depiction seems very nearly blasphemous. Could it be a joke? Perhaps a satirical painting along the lines of Banksy? (Spoiler alert: it is not a Banksy piece…)
What it is, is a depiction of the Battle of Lepanto which took place on the 7th of October 1571, a mural inside the Church of Santa Maria di Pazzalino in Lugano, Switzerland, portraying the famous (and temporary) Christian victory over the Ottoman army and attributing it to a divine and dynamite-charged intervention.
From what was intended to be a light-hearted tale about a church fresco, a ragtag reflection pours forth, both amused and suffered through, about the mysteries of the creative process, and historical and cultural dissemination in journalism: 
“The problem is that a war has broken out in Ukraine, my surname is Bilenko, and my paternal grandparents were from Odessa: and I realise - although subconsciously to begin with – that I can no longer smile before a wall painting made 400 years ago in which the Madonna rains bombs down on men when war is raging 2’000km to the northeast.”

Daniel Bilenko