The Votive Temple of Maipú () or Basilica of Our Lady of Mount Carmel () is a Catholic church located in the Chilean town of Maipú. Its construction was ordered by

Bernardo O'Higgins Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme (; August 20, 1778 – October 24, 1842) was a Chilean independence leader who freed Chile from Spanish rule in the Chilean War of Independence. He was a wealthy landowner of Basque-Spanish and Irish ancestry. Alth ...

in 1818 as an act of thanksgiving to Our Lady of Mount Carmel for the intercession for the victory of the

Chilean Army The Chilean Army ( es, Ejército de Chile) is the land arm of the Military of Chile. This 80,000-person army (9,200 of which are conscripts) is organized into six divisions, a special operations brigade and an air brigade. In recent years, and ...

in the Battle of Maipú, where the Independence of Chile was assured. It is called ''

votive A votive offering or votive deposit is one or more objects displayed or deposited, without the intention of recovery or use, in a sacred place for religious purposes. Such items are a feature of modern and ancient societies and are generally ...

'' because of the vows that O'Higgins made to the Virgin Mary.

History

After its construction was decreed on May 7, 1818, on November 15 the same year the first stone of the Victory Chapel or Votive Church of Maipú was laid and blessed. After 64 years of intermittent construction due to lack of resources, the old church was solemnly inaugurated. But in 1906, a violent earthquake made it necessary to rebuild the church. On December 8, 1942, the Marian congress that was held in Santiago reached the sole agreement to build a great sanctuary in Maipú, on the grounds of the old Chapel of Victory to honor Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Thus, on July 16, 1948, the Archbishop of Santiago Monsignor José María Caro ordered the construction of the new building. During the long years of the construction of the current church, Catholic groups such as and Clandestina opposed it because they saw it as a luxury, proposing to give the money invested in it to the poorest people both of the Archdiocese of Santiago and the rest of the country. The work was delayed due to lack of resources but finally on October 24, 1974, and thanks to the Fundación Nacional Voto O'Higgins (on which the church depends today), the Votive Temple of Maipú was solemnly inaugurated. Initially, the project was conceived to transform the site into a large mausoleum where the remains of the Heroes of the Homeland and the most notable Chileans would rest, similar to the Panthéon in Paris, but the church opposed this initiative and preferred to transform it into a shrine, dedicated exclusively to Catholic worship and the spiritual care of pilgrims. On November 23, 1974, the Bishops of Chile, presided over by Cardinal Archbishop of Santiago, Monsignor Raúl Silva Henríquez, consecrated the church. On October 26, 1984 the church was declared a

historical monument A monument is a type of structure that was explicitly created to commemorate a person or event, or which has become relevant to a social group as a part of their remembrance of historic times or cultural heritage, due to its artistic, hist ...

by Supreme Decree No. 645. On January 27, 1987, the church was declared a

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's Forum (Roman), forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building ...

The image

The image of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, venerated in the church, is a wooden sculpture brought to Chile in 1785 by Martín de Lecuna for his oratory. The image was donated to the Cardinal Archbishop of Santiago,

Monsignor Monsignor (; it, monsignore ) is an honorific form of address or title for certain male clergy members, usually members of the Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" ca ...

José María Caro by

Doña Don (; ; pt, Dom, links=no ; all from Latin ', roughly 'Lord'), abbreviated as D., is an honorific prefix primarily used in Spain and Hispanic America, and with different connotations also in Italy, Portugal and its former colonies, and Croatia ...

Rosalía Mujica de Gutiérrez, a descendant of Don Martín de Lecuna, in August 1945. On April 3, 1987, the image was crowned as Queen and Patroness of Chile by

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

during his apostolic visit to Chile, ratifying the decree of Pope Pius XI in 1923 that granted such distinction.

Viewpoint

Just below the bell tower of the temple ( high) there is a scenic viewpoint. The space was inaugurated on April 3, 2012, coinciding with the twenty-fifth anniversary of John Paul II's visit to Chile. With an area of , it offers a panoramic view of Santiago's southwest side. It can be accessed by elevator or by a staircase of 323 steps. The viewpoint has audiovisual equipment to display informative content to visitors, and inside is a

compass rose A compass rose, sometimes called a wind rose, rose of the winds or compass star, is a figure on a compass, map, nautical chart, or monument used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions (north, east, south, and west) and their i ...

that indicates the location of various Marian sanctuaries around the world.

References

External links

Official website
(in Spanish)

(in Spanish) {{DEFAULTSORT:Votive Temple of Maipu Churches in Santiago, Chile Modernist architecture in Chile Architecture in Chile