The EU Flag and its references to Mary

The EU flag represents a new democratic attempt—a supranational structure to initially prevent another world war, and now an economic union to benefit the collective countries. Why the blue background and 12 gold stars in the center, however? Details about the flag's selection and early actions of an earlier EU organization indicate the flag may represent the Virgin Mary.

The EU flag that we know today was selected by a predecessor organization headquartered in Strasbourg, the Council of Europe. This organization, founded in 1949, was proposed by Churchill in 1943 as a means to "prevent renewed aggression and the preparation of future wars." The Treaty of London formally organized the council with 10 countries signing, and another two joining on shortly thereafter to make 12 starting countries. This number is significant and might certainly point to a valid reason for 12 stars on the flag, if it weren't for other details around the search and adoption of the symbol.

The search for the flag started in 1950 and lasted five years. Many design proposals were submitted incorporating themes such as crosses, interlinked circles, and stars. The final design the selection committee debated was indeed a circle of stars, but the question for the 15 countries at that time in 1955 was—how many stars? Paul Lévy decided on 12 to cut through the arguments with the following statement: "Against the blue sky of the Western world, the stars represent the peoples of Europe in a circle, a symbol of unity. Their number shall be invariably set at twelve, the symbol of completeness and perfection." In an interview many years later, Lévy goes into more detail, citing that 12 represents the hours on the clock, number of signs on the zodiac, sons of Jacob, and more. Finally, the coincidence that this symbol corresponds with the Woman of the Apocalypse, a symbol of Mary, was only revealed to him later. Specifically, the book of Revelations states that "a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars" (12:1), and many art pieces of the Virgin Mary include this symbol, such as this statue at the Strasbourg Cathedral.

The search for the flag design concluded with a formal approval from the Council on 25 October 1955. Despite that approval, the flag was not formally adopted until 8 December 1955, which is the day of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Then, about one year after the approval on 21 October 1956, the Council donated a stained glass window to the Strasbourg Cathedral that depicts Mary, the Child holding a water lilly, and the familiar 12 gold star symbol against blue background at top. Lastly, roughly one and a half years from that point, the Treaty of Rome was signed on Capitoline Hill on 25 March 1957. This day is the same as the Feast of the Annunciation, or the celebration of Mary learning from the archangel Gabriel that she would be the mother of Jesus Christ.

Only one member of the flag design selection committee claimed that the design purposefully represents the Virgin Mary, Arsene Heitz, but he shared this information well after the fact in 1987. Lévy and others then refuted this claim, and further, Heitz submitted 21 designs, of which only a few resemble the design the Council adopted.

The intentionality behind the design of the EU flag and its overlapping symbolism with the Virgin Mary and the Woman of the Apocalypse is certainly in question—what we know is that, as explicitly stated, 12 stars were chosen as a symbol of unity and perfection, aligning the EU flag with the zodiac, the hours of the day, and the sons of Jacob. We also know that the blue background is meant to be the sky, and the stars meant to represent the actual celestial object. We then have a series of actions in a roughly 3 year period—the flag adoption on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the Council donating a stained glass window with the flag design prominently featured as a symbol for Mary, and the signing of the Treaty of Rome on the Feast of the Annunciation—that all point very strongly to some other symbolic understanding on the Council's part.

While the EU today represents a new democratic and economic endeavor on a supranational scale, we should keep in mind that the context after World War II was very different. The seminal EU or EU-related organizations were founded with the raison d'être of preventing another world war—"Never again"—and maybe those individuals also saw the importance of Christian tradition in Western Europe, of its key differentiating feature from the Soviet counterforce, or of a phoenix-like, civilization rebuilding effort after an apocalyptic war.