Our Lady of the Peñitas

Patron of Oropesa (Toledo)

On the outskirts of Oropesa, a hermitage guards the Virgin of the Peñitas, a tiny 15th-century ceramic image of the most intense devotion; patron and "Mayor major and perpetual" of the villa, canonically crowned in 1962.

Origin and history

The image of Our Lady of the Peñitas is a small ceramic size, about 22 to 25 centimeters, dating stylistically in the 15th century. The present hermitage is a baroque temple of the 18th century, built on another previous hermitage that was small by the increase of devotion. Oropesa belonged to the diocese of Avila until 1955, when he passed to the archdiocese of Toledo; in this context, the official recognition of his patronage, granted by Paul VI in 1963, was promoted, and the image was canonically crowned on 8 September 1962 by Cardinal Pla and Deniel. He is also recognized as the mayor of the villa.

Tradition places the finding of the image when a shepherd found it on a granite rock and took it home, but the image mysteriously returned to the place of the rock, interpreting itself as the Virgin's desire to remain there; hence her name. In that place was raised a first small hermitage, replaced in the 18th century by the present one. Despite its tiny size, it enjoys a very intense devotion, expressed on the annual pilgrimage by the "Way of the Virgin of the Peñitas" between the hermitage and the parish of the Assumption on September 8.