The icon remained at St. Matthew's for three centuries. For at least the final 60 years of the 18th century, St. Matthew's was occupied by an Irish Augustinian congregation of the Catholic Church. When war broke out in Rome in 1798, the icon was moved to the Church of St. 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 St. Mary in Posterula was later demolished in 1880.