Cathedral Basilica of Esquipulas
The Basilica of Esquipulas ((in Spanish) - Basílica de Esquipulas) or Cathedral Basilica of the Black Christ of Esquipulas ((in Spanish) - Catedral Basílica del Cristo Negro de Esquipulas) is a Baroque church in the city of Esquipulas, Guatemala, named after the image of the Black Christ of Esquipulas which it houses. It is the largest Roman Catholic church in Central America and southern Mexico and the only one in America with four bell-towers. It has the status of cathedral, minor basilica and Catholic sanctuary.
It is visited by about 4.5 million pilgrims annually, including 1.5 million in the days leading up to its patronal festival on 15 January and the festival on 9 March which marks the date of the image's arrival in the city in 1595. The image was initially placed in a chapel before being transferred to the parish church after the latter's completion at the end of the 17th century. Its present home was completed in 1758 and the image processed to it in 6 January 1759. On a visit in 1840, the anthropologist John Lloyd Stephens described the church as the town's "only object of interest".
The church was promoted to cathedral status by pope Pius XII in 1956 as the seat of the new Territorial Prelature of Santo Cristo de Esquípulas, whose first prelate Mariano Rossell y Arellano (the senior archbishop of Guatemala) sought to set up a Benedictine monastery attached to the cathedral to care for it - this was founded in 1959 by three monks sent from San José Abbey in Louisiana. He also successfully petitioned pope John XXIII to promote the church to minor basilica status in 1961. It was visited on 6 February 1996 by Pope John Paul II during his second Apostolic Visit to Guatemala to mark the four-hundredth anniversary of the veneration of the Black Christ.
External links
- "Sitio Oficial de la Basílica de Esquipulas". basilicadeesquipulas.info. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
Coordinates: 14°33′47″N 89°21′06″W / 14.5631°N 89.3517°W