Santuario della Madonna delle Lacrime
The Santuario della Madonna delle Lacrime (German: Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of Tears) is a pilgrimage church in Syracuse . The church is the largest pilgrimage church in Sicily.
Emergence
On August 29, 1953, a plaster painting in a farmer's house began to shed tears . The news of this miracle spread quickly and for the first time hundreds of thousands of believers made a pilgrimage to Syracuse to see an image of the Madonna. After three days, the Curia arranged for the tears to be sampled. The tears stopped. The analysis showed a composition similar to that of human tears. The Bishop of Palermo declared the tears to be real and a place of pilgrimage was planned.
The construction
In 1956 the establishment of a place of pilgrimage was decreed. The church could not be built on the site of the miracle as there are many houses here. The current location was then found as a building site. In the 1957 architectural competition, the design by the French architects Michel Andrault (* 1926) and Pierre Parat (* 1928) was chosen.
Construction began in 1966. It first had to be checked whether there were archaeological finds on the building site. An ancient residential area from the 6th century was found and part of a street was excavated. This street was the main street of the Acradina neighborhood and consisted of two layers, an old one made of limestone and paving to renew the worn street. The remains of a Demeter and Kore shrine have also been found here.
First the crypt was built. The miracle picture is exhibited here. The church was completed in 1994 and consecrated by Pope John Paul II . In 2002 he raised the church to the rank of minor basilica . It is noteworthy that the building was made of prestressed concrete. This clearly sets it apart from the other churches in the city. Inside, too, the rather sparse furnishings are a clear contradiction to the other places of worship in the region.
The church
The church has space for 11,000 visitors. It has a height of 74.50 m, the inner diameter is about 71.40 m, which gives an area of about 4,000 m².
Inside view of the "dome"
Exterior view
literature
- Brigit Carnabuci: Sicily. Greek temples, Roman villas, Norman cathedrals and baroque cities in the center of the Mediterranean (= DuMont art travel guide ). 6th, updated edition. DuMont Reiseverlag, Ostfildern 2011, ISBN 978-3-7701-4385-6 .
- Syracuse, Art - History - Nature, a publication by COGRAFA SzL
Coordinates: 37 ° 4 ′ 29 ″ N , 15 ° 17 ′ 7 ″ E