The Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana is a
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
* Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...
monastery
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whic ...
located in the district of
Liébana
Liébana is a ''Comarcas of Cantabria, comarca'' of Cantabria (Spain). It covers 575 square kilometres and is located in the far southwest of Cantabria, bordering Asturias, León (province), León and Palencia (province), Palencia. It is made up o ...
, near
Potes
Potes is a municipality in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Cantabria in Spain. It is the capital of the Comarcas of Spain, Comarca of Liébana and is located in the centre of it. It is bordered to the north by Cillorigo ...
in
Cantabria
Cantabria (, also , , Cantabrian: ) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a ''comunidad histórica'', a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east ...
,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, ...
. Located in the
Cantabrian Mountains
, etymology=Named after the Cantabri
, photo=Cordillera Cantábrica vista desde el Castro Valnera.jpg
, photo_caption=Cantabrian Mountains parallel to the Cantabrian Sea seen from Castro Valnera in an east-west direction. In the background, ...
in northern Spain, the monastery is one of the five places in Christianity that, together with
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
,
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
,
Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of S ...
and
Caravaca de la Cruz
Caravaca de la Cruz, often shortened to Caravaca, is a town and municipality of southeastern Spain in the region of Murcia, near the left bank of the River Argos, a tributary of the Segura. It is the capital of the northwest Region of Murcia. I ...
, has the privilege of issuing perpetual
indulgences
In the teaching of the Catholic Church, an indulgence (, from , 'permit') is "a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins". The ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' describes an indulgence as "a remission before God o ...
.
The monastery was founded prior to the 6th century. According to tradition, the monastery venerates the largest piece of the
Lignum Crucis
The True Cross is the cross upon which Jesus was said to have been crucified, particularly as an object of religious veneration. There are no early accounts that the apostles or early Christians preserved the physical cross themselves, although ...
discovered in Jerusalem by Saint
Helena of Constantinople
Flavia Julia Helena ''Augusta'' (also known as Saint Helena and Helena of Constantinople, ; grc-gre, Ἑλένη, ''Helénē''; AD 246/248– c. 330) was an '' Augusta'' and Empress of the Roman Empire and mother of Emperor Constantine th ...
. Brought from the
Church of the Holy Sepulcher
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, hy, Սուրբ Հարության տաճար, la, Ecclesia Sancti Sepulchri, am, የቅዱስ መቃብር ቤተክርስቲያን, he, כנסיית הקבר, ar, كنيسة القيامة is a church i ...
by
Saint Turibius of Astorga, the left arm of the True Cross is kept on a gilded silver reliquary. The monastery was initially dedicated to
St. Martin of Tours
Martin of Tours ( la, Sanctus Martinus Turonensis; 316/336 – 8 November 397), also known as Martin the Merciful, was the third bishop of Tours. He has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints in France, heralded as the ...
but its name was changed in the 12th century.
On April 16, 1961, the
Franciscan
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
friars, Custodians of the Holy Places, were entrusted with the relic's safekeeping and with the promotion of the devotion to the Holy Cross.
History
Its origins are obscure, but it was during the reign of
Alfonso I of Asturias
Alfonso I of Asturias, called the Catholic (''el Católico''), (c. 693 – 757) was the third King of Asturias, reigning from 739 to his death in 757. His reign saw an extension of the Christian domain of Asturias, reconquering Galicia and L ...
, who was repopulating the area around Liébana during the early part of the
reconquest of Spain in the mid-8th century. The first reference to the monastery of Turieno with the protection of Saint Turibius was made in 1125. Its foundation is attributed to a 6th-century
Bishop of Palencia
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Palencia ( la, Palentin(sis)) is a diocese located in the city of Palencia in the ecclesiastical province of Burgos, Spain. called
Turibius of Liébana
Turibius of Liébana (''fl.'' '), also known as Turbius the Monk (''Turibius Monachus'', ''Toribio el Monje''), was an early Benedictine monk. He was born probably in Turieno and spent most of his life in the region of Liébana. He received a lett ...
, who retired with some companions to Liébana to live according to the
Benedictine
, image = Medalla San Benito.PNG
, caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal
, abbreviation = OSB
, formation =
, motto = (English: 'Pray and Work')
, foun ...
rule. When it was founded, the monastery was first dedicated to Saint
Martin of Tours
Martin of Tours ( la, Sanctus Martinus Turonensis; 316/336 – 8 November 397), also known as Martin the Merciful, was the third bishop of Tours. He has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints in France, heralded as the ...
, which name over time was changed to Saint Turibius of Liébana. Probably during the 8th century, the body of another 6th-century
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...
, Saint
Turibius of Astorga
Saint Turibius of Astorga ( es, Santo Toribio de Astorga; ''fl.'' 446, died 460) was an archdeacon of Tui and an early Bishop of Astorga. Turibius was a zealous maintainer of ecclesiastical discipline, and defender of the Nicene Christianity agai ...
was moved to the monastery, along with relics which he was believed to have brought from the
Holy Land
The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy ...
for safekeeping.
The most important of these is that of the Wood of the
True Cross
The True Cross is the cross upon which Jesus was said to have been crucified, particularly as an object of religious veneration. There are no early accounts that the apostles or early Christians preserved the physical cross themselves, althoug ...
(''Lignum Crucis''), believed by some Roman Catholics to be the biggest surviving piece of the
cross
A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a s ...
upon which
Jesus Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...
was
crucified
Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagin ...
. Because of this, the monastery was an important
pilgrimage
A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, aft ...
centre, and is one of the most important holy sites of
Roman Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, alongside other notable places such as
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
,
Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of S ...
,
Caravaca de la Cruz
Caravaca de la Cruz, often shortened to Caravaca, is a town and municipality of southeastern Spain in the region of Murcia, near the left bank of the River Argos, a tributary of the Segura. It is the capital of the northwest Region of Murcia. I ...
and
Assisi
Assisi (, also , ; from la, Asisium) is a town and '' comune'' of Italy in the Province of Perugia in the Umbria region, on the western flank of Monte Subasio.
It is generally regarded as the birthplace of the Latin poet Propertius, born arou ...
. The
monastery
A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whic ...
was also where the 8th century
monk
A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedic ...
Beatus of Liébana
Saint Beatus of Liébana ( es, Beato; 730 – c. 800) was a monk, theologian, and geographer from the former Duchy of Cantabria and Kingdom of Asturias, in modern Cantabria, northern Spain, who worked and lived in the Picos de Europa mountains ...
wrote and illustrated his works, such as his Commentary on the
Apocalypse
Apocalypse () is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imager ...
.
The monastery was originally a royal possession, but it was given by
Alfonso VIII of Castile
Alfonso VIII (11 November 11555 October 1214), called the Noble (''El Noble'') or the one of Las Navas (''el de las Navas''), was King of Castile from 1158 to his death and King of Toledo. After having suffered a great defeat with his own army a ...
to Count Gómez y Countess Emilia, who then passed it on to the monastery of Oña (
Burgos
Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos.
Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence o ...
), along with other properties in Liébana and neighbouring provinces. The monastic community ceased to exist after the forced sale of religious land in Spain in 1837, but was replaced in 1961 by a small community of
Friars Minor.
Church
The most important building is the
gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
church, whose construction began in 1256, though it has been remodeled several times since. It is built on the site of a pre-Romanesque and a
Romanesque building (perhaps
Asturian or
Mozarabic
Mozarabic, also called Andalusi Romance, refers to the medieval Romance varieties spoken in the Iberian Peninsula in territories controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Córdoba and its successors. They were the common tongue for the majority of ...
in style). It has the clarity of line and space, and the surrounding decoration that characterises the architecture of San Bernardo. The church is rectangular in plan with three
aisle
An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, pa ...
s; a tower at the foot of the central, widest aisle, and three polygonal
apse
In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an '' exedra''. ...
s. Its facade is similar to that of the Abbey of the Holy Bodies, the
cathedral of Santander. Its doors in the southern wall are Romanesque in style and possibly predate the building inside. The principal door, the Puerta del Perdón (Door of Forgiveness) is only ever opened during each Jubilee Year when
Saint Turibius' day coincides with a Sunday. The cloister was completed in the 17th century.
The True Cross
According to tradition, this relic is part of the
True Cross
The True Cross is the cross upon which Jesus was said to have been crucified, particularly as an object of religious veneration. There are no early accounts that the apostles or early Christians preserved the physical cross themselves, althoug ...
that the Empress Saint
Helena
Helena may refer to:
People
*Helena (given name), a given name (including a list of people and characters with the name)
*Katri Helena (born 1945), Finnish singer
*Helena, mother of Constantine I
Places
Greece
* Helena (island)
Guyana
* H ...
unearthed in Jerusalem. From there,
Saint Turibius of Astorga, Custodian of the Holy Places, took it to the cathedral of his hometown in
Astorga, Spain, where he was soon made
bishop
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ...
. When the
Moors
The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages.
Moors are not a distinc ...
invaded Spain in 711, the relic was hidden along with others in a fold on Mount Viorna in the Liebana Valley, next to St. Turibius' relics. Both relics were eventually transferred to the monastery that immediately became an important place to be visited by pilgrims on their way to
Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of S ...
. Documents dated 1507 state that, "since time immemorial" the Jubilee is celebrated every time the saint's feast-day falls on a Sunday.
Fr. Sandoval, chronicler of the Benedictine order, wrote that this relic is the "left arm of the Holy Cross. It was sawed and assembled in the form of a cross, leaving intact the hole where was nailed down the hand of Christ". The vertical bar is long and the crossbar is long. The cross has a thickness of
.
It is the largest preserved relic of the
True Cross
The True Cross is the cross upon which Jesus was said to have been crucified, particularly as an object of religious veneration. There are no early accounts that the apostles or early Christians preserved the physical cross themselves, althoug ...
.
The wood was embedded in a Gothic
silver gilt
Silver-gilt or gilded/gilt silver, sometimes known in American English by the French term vermeil, is silver (either pure or sterling) which has been gilded with gold. Most large objects made in goldsmithing that appear to be gold are actually ...
cross, manufactured by a workshop of Valladolid in 1679. It lies in a housing of golden wood in a
baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
, domed, early 18th-century chapel in the north wall of the
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* Chri ...
, looked over by an
effigy
An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certai ...
of the chapel's founder, Francisco de Cosío y Otero (1640–1715),
Grand Inquisitor
Grand Inquisitor ( la, Inquisitor Generalis, literally ''Inquisitor General'' or ''General Inquisitor'') was the lead official of the Inquisition. The title usually refers to the chief inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, even after the reuni ...
of Madrid and later
Archbishop of Bogotá in
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the ...
, who was born locally.
In 1817 Ignacio Ramón de Roda,
Bishop of León, went to the monastery and asked permission of the
prior
Prior (or prioress) is an ecclesiastical title for a superior in some religious orders. The word is derived from the Latin for "earlier" or "first". Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior. In abbeys, a prior would be low ...
of the Benedictine monks to remove a portion of the Cross. Two pieces of wood arranged in the form of a cross in a reliquary were given to Don Joachim and Don Felix Columbus, descendants of
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
, for the chapel of their family castle in
Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous community in northwest Spain.
It is coextensiv ...
. In 1909 Terry and Mathilde Boal inherited and imported to their American estate the chapel of the Columbus family, including an admiral's desk that belonged to the famous explorer himself. They brought from Spain to
Boalsburg,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
, the entrance door and the whole interior of the Columbus Chapel with the relic of the True Cross.
In 1958 a scientific investigation carried out by Madrid's Forestry Research Institute concluded that the relic is of a Mediterranean Cypress wood (
Cupressus sempervirens
''Cupressus sempervirens'', the Mediterranean cypress (also known as Italian cypress, Tuscan cypress, Persian cypress, or pencil pine), is a species of cypress native to the eastern Mediterranean region, in northeast Libya, southern Albania, so ...
), very common in Israel, and could be older than 2,000 years.
Notes
External links
*
*
*
* http://www.boalmuseum.com
* http://www.liebanaypicosdeeuropa.com/visita-i/lb1_3_2.htm
* http://www.mosheh.net/toribio/sto_toribioi.htm
{{DEFAULTSORT:Santo Toribio De Liebana
13th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Spain
Romanesque architecture in Cantabria
Gothic architecture in Cantabria
Toribio
Monasteries in Cantabria
Franciscan monasteries in Spain
Catholic pilgrimage sites
Tourist attractions in Cantabria
Museums in Cantabria
Pilgrimage churches