Our Lady of Santa Cruz de Oran
On the top of Mount Murdjadjo, next to the old Spanish fort of Santa Cruz, the sanctuary of Our Lady of Santa Cruz, born of the cholera epidemic of 1849, rises: after a Marian procession, on 4 November of that year a providential rain preceded the end of the contagion, and the city raised in 1850 a chapel of thanksgiving. On December 8, 2018, this Marian sanctuary welcomed the beatification of the nineteen martyrs of Algeria, with Mons. Pierre Claverie in front.
🌹 Wonders and anecdotes
- In 1849 the cholera hit Oran and caused more than a thousand victims. The people went up in procession begging for the Virgin, and on November 4 a plentiful rain fell after which the epidemic was giving way until it ceased: the Orans always remembered it as the "miracle of the rain."
- The thanksgiving chapel was erected in 1850 at the summit of the Murdjadjo; collapsed in 1851, it was rebuilt with tendon, and between 1873 and 1874 it was completed with a large tower crowned by a monumental image of the Virgin, founded in the same mold as that of Fourvière (Lyon).
- After the independence of Algeria, the venerated image was transferred in 1962 to the shrine of Notre-Dame de Santa Cruz de Nimes (France), where each Ascension of thousands of Oranese faithful and their descendants keep the pilgrimage alive; in Oran, the sanctuary remains a place of prayer and recollection.
- On December 8, 2018, the Solemnity of the Immaculate, were beatified in this sanctuary, Mons. Pierre Claverie, Bishop of Oran, murdered in 1996 with his young Muslim friend Mohamed Bouchikhi, and his eighteen fellow martyrs, including the seven monks of Tibhirine: the first beatification held in a Muslim country.
Virgin of Santa Cruz
From the "miracle of the rain" of 1849 to the beatification of the martyrs of Algeria in 2018, Our Lady of Santa Cruz is watching over Oran from Mount Murdjadjo. A sanctuary that unites the gratitude of a people saved from cholera and the testimony of those who gave their lives for love.
"Our Lady of Santa Cruz, who candles over Oran, reaches peace to Algeria and keeps the seed of the martyrs.
Is the advocation of the Virgin Mary of your people missing?
Si no encuentras la advocación mariana de tu ciudad o pueblo, cuéntanosla: la investigaremos para ubicarla y darla a conocer en este mapa del amor de la Madre por el mundo.
Propose an apvocation →