The Church of Saint Pius X ( es, Iglesia de San Pío X) was a Catholic church located in
Todoque
Todoque was a locality belonging to the municipality of Los Llanos de Aridane, located in the southwest of the island of La Palma, Canary Islands. Its main neighborhoods were Todoque, Los Pasitos and Todoque de Arriba. The town was first badly dam ...
,
Los Llanos de Aridane
Los Llanos de Aridane is a municipality of the Province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. It is located in the west of the island of La Palma, in the Aridane Valley. With 20,930 inhabitants (2013)La Palma (
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...
, Spain). Built in 1954 and destroyed during the
2021 Cumbre Vieja volcanic eruption
An eruption at the Cumbre Vieja complex volcano, volcanic ridge, comprising the southern half of the Spain, Spanish island of La Palma in the Canary Islands, lasted from 19 September to 13 December 2021. It was the first volcanic eruption on the ...
, it was the world's first church dedicated to
Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X ( it, Pio X; born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914) was head of the Catholic Church from 4 August 1903 to his death in August 1914. Pius X is known for vigorously opposing modernist interpretations of C ...
.
Description
Exterior
The church, erected after the end of the postwar period by the inhabitants of the town themselves and located on land donated by a neighbor of the area, presented a simple facade framed in the popular Canarian architectural style, although with a clear Mudejar influence.
Built of brick the front wall had a small projection with a shape slightly similar to a trapezoid, while the entrance, in a semicircular arch, was located under a simple-made rose window and a porch with a sloping roof and roof made of Arabic tile supported by four columns with a rectangular base supported on pronounced bases and surmounted by capitals of the Tuscan order. With a gabled roof with prominent buttresses and enclosed windows, to the left of the main facade was the bell tower, with a square plan and two sections with a balcony, a clock and a conical dome with an octagonal base surmounted by a cross. To the left of the entrance door there was a small plaque with the following inscription:
: PRIMER TEMPLO DEL ORBE CATÓLICO
: DEDICADO A LA ADVOCACIÓN DEL
: GRAN PONTÍFICE DE LA EUCARISTIA
: PIO X
: XXX - V - MCMLIV
: TODOQUE 19 - 8 - 84
: (Translation: ''First church in the Catholic world dedicated to the advocation of the Great Pontiff of the Eucharist, Pius X. 30 May 1954. Todoque, 19 August 1984'')
Interior
The interior, with a rectangular floor plan and a single nave, had a checkered floor and a wooden ceiling. Of great ornamental simplicity, the main chapel, decorated with an altarpiece, had a rectangular floor plan and was located behind a semicircular arch supported by inlaid columns with a square base. The main altarpiece consisted of a body with three streets, a bench and an attic, all made of polychrome and marbled wood. The central niche, with a segmental arch and framed by pilasters, housed a carving of the crucified Christ of great pathos, while the lateral ones, with a semicircular arch and veined, were half the size of the central niche and showed a carving of the Virgin of Carmel on the left and a larger image of Pope Pius X on the right. Between the lateral niches and the attic, friezes stood out which presented, on the left and right respectively, the shields of the Virgin of Carmel and Pius X framed by pilasters as well as the lateral niches and separated from these by simple commiss. The attic, surrounded by fins and pinnacles and crowned by a triangular pediment, showed the pictorial images of God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, forming the iconography of the Holy Trinity.
Destruction
On 19 September 2021, an eruption began in the pine forest called Cabeza de Vaca, in the municipality of
El Paso
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...
, leaving the church that same day within the security perimeter established by the authorities. Sixteen hours later, three lava flows were produced which reached a height of six meters. By 2:00 p.m. on 21 September, the main lava flow had reached the locality of Todoque at a speed of approximately 120 meters per hour. Various elements of the church's furniture were removed, such as images, paintings, liturgical objects and relics. The altarpiece could not be dismantled, and was destroyed along with the benches. After a period of slowdown (four meters per hour), the lava was reactivated reaching an average speed of around 100 meters per hour, passing the Todoque neighborhood and running about 150 meters to the west of the center of the population center. Affected by the lava, at 5:55 p.m. on 26 September, the bell tower of the temple collapsed on itself, an event broadcast live by the BTC Connection program of Radio Televisión Canaria and also recorded by several amateur videographers.