Las Lajas Sanctuary

Lucindo Espinosa · Ipiales, CO · 1949

Key featuresGothic Revival church set on an arched bridge across a river gorge, its altar against the cliff.

Landscape
Stone
Section

Architect: Lucindo Espinosa
Place: Ipiales, CO
Year: 1949
Typology: Religious
Movement: Historic precedent
Region: Americas

See it on the wall

About Las Lajas Sanctuary

The Sanctuary of Las Lajas (in full Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of Las Lajas) is a Catholic minor basilica located within the canyon of the Guáitara River in Ipiales, Nariño Department, Colombia. The Marian shrine is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Rosary. The architect was Lucindo Maria Espinosa Medina.

Pious believers claim that the colorful Madonna and Child image displayed on the rock wall is of divine origin, and that it was formed without human intervention. The current church was built in a neo-gothic architectural style between 1916 and 1949. The name Laja is Spanish for a flagstone, and comes from the name of a type of flat sedimentary rock.

Pope Pius XII granted a Pontifical Decree of coronation to the image as Sancta Virgo de Rupe (English: Holy Virgin of the Rock) on 31 May 1951. He also raised the Marian shrine to the status of a Minor basilica via his decree Templum per Decorum on 30 August 1954. Pope Paul VI granted the Marian title as the Virgin of the Holy Rosary as the Patroness of Ipiales via his decree Tutela Cælestis Virtutis on 26 April 1965.

Shortened from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.