The Church of Saint Lazarus () is a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

Rímac District Rímac (pronunciation: ), known until the 19th century as the neighbourhood of San Lázaro, is a district in the Lima Province, Peru. It lies directly to the north of downtown Lima, to which it is connected by six bridges over the Rímac River. ...

, part of the

Historic Centre of Lima The Historic Centre of Lima () is the historic city centre of the city of Lima, the capital of Peru. Located in the city's districts of Lima and Rímac, both in the Rímac Valley, it consists of two areas: the first is the Monumental Zone est ...

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

. Built in 1586, it was the first church built in the area. Since then it has been rebuilt several times after the damage left by the various

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

s in Peru. It is located on block five of

Jirón Trujillo Jirón Trujillo is an important street in Rímac District, part of the historic centre of Lima, Peru. The street starts at the Puente de Piedra, where it is continued on the other side of the Rímac River by the Jirón de la Unión (with which it ...

, at the intersection with Francisco Pizarro Avenue. Up until the 19th century, the church gave the neighbourhood of San Lázaro its name, until it separated from

Lima District Lima (), also known as the ''Cercado de Lima'', is a Districts of Peru, district of the Lima Province, eponymous province of Lima, Peru. It is the oldest district of the province and as such, vestiges of the city's Viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish ...

as the district of Rímac.

History

The church is located in an area near the

Rímac River The Rímac River is located in western Peru and is the most important source of potable water for the Lima and Callao Metropolitan Area. It belongs to the Pacific Slope, into which it flows after bathing the cities of Lima and Callao, togethe ...

that has been occupied since pre-Hispanic times. The suburb that formed around it was occupied by local

Indians Indian or Indians may refer to: Associated with India * of or related to India ** Indian people ** Indian diaspora ** Languages of India ** Indian English, a dialect of the English language ** Indian cuisine Associated with indigenous peoples o ...

blacks Black is a racial classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and often additional phenotypical ch ...

, the sick,

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders in the Catholic Church. There are also friars outside of the Catholic Church, such as within the Anglican Communion. The term, first used in the 12th or 13th century, distinguishes the mendi ...

s and travelers. The first construction in the place was a

leprosarium A leper colony, also known by #Names, many other names, is an isolated community for the quarantining and treatment of lepers, people suffering from leprosy. ''Mycobacterium leprae, M. leprae'', the bacterium responsible for leprosy, is believ ...

opened around 1563 by Antón Sánchez on the road to Trujillo. Then, with the authorisation of Viceroy Count of Nieva and Archbishop Jerónimo de Loayza, Sánchez built the hospital and the church of San Lázaro. The complex adopted the name of San Lázaro on behalf of

Lazarus of Bethany Lazarus of Bethany is a figure of the New Testament whose life is restored by Jesus four days after his death, as told in the Gospel of John. The resurrection is considered one of the miracles of Jesus. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, Lazarus i ...

, the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

of the sick and lepers. From 1586 until the 19th century, Rímac district was known as the neighbourhood of San Lázaro after the temple. During the

1586 Lima–Callao earthquake The 1586 Lima–Callao earthquake () was an earthquake that occurred on July 9 along the coast of Peru, near the capital Lima. A section of the Peruvian coast, stretching from Caravelí to Trujillo, north to south, was severely damaged by the e ...

the complex suffered catastrophic damage. In 1606 the brotherhood of San Lázaro rebuilt the hospital and in 1626, the church. The earthquakes of

1687 Events January–March * January 3 – With the end of latest of the Savoyard–Waldensian wars in the Duchy of Savoy between the Savoyard government and Protestant Italians known as the Waldensians, Victor Amadeus III, Duke o ...

, 1690 and especially that of 1746 once again left the hospital and the church in ruins. On April 23, 1758, a new hospital headquarters was inaugurated, which operated there until 1822. The temple was elevated to the status of a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

in 1736. With the exception of the

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

, the temple that existed then is the same as today.

References

{{coord, -12.03950, -77.02926, format=dms, type:landmark_region:PE, display=title

San Lázaro San Lázaro is a town in the Concepción department of Paraguay. Located 660 km from Asunción and 190 km from departmental capital Concepción, its population was 9060 in 2002. Located at the confluence of rivers Paraguay and Apa. Th ...

Rímac District

History

See also

References