永援圣母
Origin and discovery

According to the Keras Kardiotissas Monastery（英语：）, the icon was painted by 圣人 Lazarus Zographos（英语：） and was known as the Panagia Kardiotissa (Παναγίας Καρδιώτισσας), due to the depiction of the 天主之母 holding the Child Jesus（英语：） near her heart. Historian Stergios Spanakis had argued that the miraculous icon was the reason for the founding of the monastery. Cristoforo Buondelmonti（英语：）, an Italian Franciscan priest and traveler who visited Crete in 1415, wrote of the icon being miraculous:
"Βαδίζαµε ανάµεσα σε πυκνοδασωµένα πετρώδη βουνά µέχρι που φθάσαµε στην εκκλησία της Καρδιώτισσας, που πολλές φορές είχε φανερωθή στους πιστούς µε θαύµατα."
The icon was stolen from the monastery in 1498.
The earliest written account of the icon after its abduction comes from a Latin and 意大利语 plaque placed in the church of San Matteo in Via Merulana（英语：） where it was first venerated by the public in 1499. The writer of the icon is unknown, but according to a parchment attached to the painting that accompanied the icon, it was stolen by a merchant sailing to 罗马 from the island of 克里特. (The Keras Kardiotissas Monastery（英语：） is regarded as the monastery from which the icon was stolen.) The image remained in the private possession of a Roman merchant and his family until 27 March 1499, when the icon was transferred to the church of San Matteo  where it remained for 300 years. The picture was then popularly called the “Madonna di San Matteo”.
The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer（英语：） maintain a robust account of the icon and its passage from the private hands of a merchant family in Rome to its final and current location at Sant'Alfonso di Liguori（英语：）, on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. The accounting includes the story of a merchant who secured the icon from Crete, and brought it to his family's home in Rome, during the late 15th century. The story includes a passage of a young member of the family, the six-year-old daughter of the merchant, who was visited by the Virgin Mary in a dream. Part of the accounting includes the following passage:
“At last, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the six-year-old daughter of this Roman family and told her to tell her mother and grandmother that the picture of Holy Mary of Perpetual Help should be placed in the Church of Saint Matthew the Apostle, located between the basilicas of Saint Mary Major and Saint John Lateran.”
The icon remained at Saint Matthew's for three centuries. For at least the final 60 years of the 18th century, St. Matthew's was occupied by the Augustinian Order of the Catholic Church. When war broke out in Rome in 1798, the icon was moved to the Church of Saint Mary in Posterula, near the "Umberto I" bridge that crosses the Tiber River in Rome. The icon remained "hidden" there until Pope Pius IX granted the possession of the icon to the Redemptorists by Papal Edict, in 1865. The Church of Saint Mary in Posterula was later demolished in 1880.
According to the account by the Redemptorists: "In January 1866, Fathers Michael Marchi and Ernest Bresciani went to Saint Mary's in Posterula to receive the picture from the Augustinians.". The Redemptorists had purchased the property where the former Saint Matthew's had stood, and had established and built the modern Sant'Alfonso di Liguori, in honor of the founder of their congregation. Thus, the venerated icon of the Catholic Church was returned to the location described by the Virgin Mary in the dream of the merchant's daughter, that is, at the church between Saint Mary Major and Saint John Lateran.
Redemptorist tradition holds that Pope Pius IX declared, in 1866, that the Redemptorists make the icon known to the world, and so, several copies were made and sent to Redemptorist parishes around the world. One such Redemptorist parish in the United States, Saint Mary's in Annapolis, Maryland, received a copy from Rome in 1868. The image is prominently displayed within the sanctuary of the parish.