Basilica of Our Lady of the Snow (Firavitoba)
The Basilica of Our Lady of the Snow ( Spanish Basílica de Nuestra Señora de las Nieves ) is a Roman Catholic church in Firavitoba, a small town in the Colombian department of Boyacá . The parish church of the Archdiocese of Tunja is under the invocation of Our Lady of the Snows of the Mother of God ordained and carries the title of a Minor Basilica .
history
In September 1869, Father Ignacio Ramón Abella took over the parish in Firavitoba with a dilapidated church. After traveling to Paris, he designed a neo-Gothic church. Construction began in 1873, and the building material was fetched in 4.5 meter blocks on carts from a quarry five kilometers away. The years of completion are 1937 and 1976. On January 19, 1995, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake damaged the towers, which took two years to repair. In mid-2009, leaks on the roof had to be repaired. On October 18, 2019, Pope Francis granted the church the rank of minor basilica.
Building
The three-aisled hall church was built in the neo-Gothic style. Behind the 27-meter-wide facade, it is 76 meters long. The ceiling of the central nave is designed as a flat barrel vault, that of the narrower aisles is flat. The naves are separated by rows of round columns with capitals. The church has stained glass windows and a marble floor. The main altar is roofed by a high ciborium on four pillars. In Colombia there is only a comparable canopy in the cathedral of Manizales . A park was created around the church.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Firavitoba, fundada en 1655, tiene como principal atractivo el templo índigena más grande del país (Spanish)
- ↑ Firavitoba (Spanish)
- ↑ Parroquia en Firavitoba - Boyacá es elevada a Basílica Menor (Spanish)
Coordinates: 5 ° 40 ′ 7.7 " N , 72 ° 59 ′ 29.8" W.