Las Lajas Cathedral

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Las Lajas Cathedral

Las Lajas Cathedral or Las Lajas Sanctuary (in Spanish Cathedral 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 1, 1916 to August 20, 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. There was a claim that in one such stone, an apparition of the Virgin Mary was seen^{[citation needed]}.

The story of the cathedral's creation is 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 through the southern region of the New Kingdom of Granada between 1756 and 1762.^{[citation needed]}

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

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