Lord of Miracles (Peru)

The Peruvian people are predominantly Catholic and the manifestation The most important religious ceremony in the country takes place in October, when a procession is held in memory of Jesus Christ crucified.

East event It is popularly known by a denomination, the Lord of Miracles. It is also known as the Cristo Moreno Procession.

A Catholic tradition that is related to Pachacamac, a deity of pre-Hispanic Peru

Before the arrival of the Spanish to the territory From Peru, the inhabitants of the Ichma culture and later the Incas worshiped Pachacamac, the god who protected men from the earthquakes of the Earth. When the Spanish conquered Peru, the representations of Pachacamac were destroyed.

The colonial officials imposed the prohibition of the ancestral Andean cults and began a process of evangelization in the Catholic faith. In this context, the Spanish introduced the figure of Jesus Christ as if he were a new Inca monarch with divine powers. Thus, the cult of Pachacamac was evolving towards the cult of Jesus Christ.

The origin of devotion to the Lord of Miracles

With the new devotions coming from the Western world, the Andean people were assimilating the worship of the saints and Jesus Christ. Around 1550 the Spanish encomendero Hernán Gonzalez took the decision to move a group of native Indians who worked the lands near the sanctuary of Pachacamac towards some lands of the property of him located in the City of the Kings, the current city of Lime. For this reasonThe entrusted natives named this place Pachacamilla and there they maintained their primitive cult of Pachacámac.

In Pachacamilla there was a process of religious syncretism between the original cult of the Andean and the religion catholic. Over time, the population autochthonous was diminishing and new slave settlers of Angolan origin arrived.

The Africans assimilated the Spanish culture and began to organize brotherhoods in order to bury their relatives with dignity. Thus, the Pachacamilla brotherhood was formed, made up of Afro-Peruvians.

Meanwhile, the Cabildo de Lima observed the brotherhoods with suspicion, since these groups organized festive events that did not have the approval of church representatives catholic. In this context, in 1651 a black slave from the Pachacamilla brotherhood painted the image of Christ crucified on the wall of his balcony.

In a short time, the population began to attribute miraculous powers to the image.

In 1655 a strong earthquake It caused great damage throughout the city, but the wall where the image of Jesus Christ was remained standing. In this way the tradition Peruvian of the Lord of Miracles.

This image is found on the Main Altar in the Sanctuary of the Nazarenas.