Las Lajas Cathedral

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Las Lajas Cathedral or Las Lajas Sanctuary (from the spanish Catedral de Las Lajas or Santuario de Las Lajas) is a cathedral located in the southern Colombian Department of Nariño, municipality of Ipiales and built inside the canyon of the Guaitara River.

The architecture of this cathedral is of Gothic Revival architecture built from January 1st, 1916 to August 20th, 1949, with donations from local churchgoers with the intention to replace an old 19th Century chapel. The name Laja comes from the name of a type of flat sedimentary rock similar to floor tiles found in the Andes Mountains. This type of rock was used by an unknown painter to paint a "Virgin of Rosario" by the bridge over the Guaitara River.

Legend or history says that in 1754 an Amerindian named "Maria Mueces" and Deaf-mute daughter "Rosa" were caught up by a very strong storm. They found refuge between the gigantic Lajas and to Maria Mueces surprise the girl exclaimed "the mestiza is calling me..." and pointing to the lightning illuminated painting over the laja. The oldest account was recorded by Accounts of Fray Juan de Santa Gertrudis's voyage throught the southern region of the New Kingdom of Granada between 1756 and 1762.

In 1951 the Roman Catholic Church canonized the Nuestra Señora de Las Lajas virgin and declared the sanctuary as a minor basilica in 1954.

[edit] References

• http://es.catholic.net/mariologiatodoacercademaria/573/1433/articulo.php?id=4380
• El Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Las Lajas, en Ipiales, Colombia