Our Lady of the Market

"Antigua del Camino" · León

Very dear to the Latvian people, the Virgin of the Market - "Antigua del Camino" - was crowned canonically on October 7, 2023, memory of the Virgin of the Rosary, in one of the most deep-rooted Marian asvocations of the city.

Origin and history

The church of Our Lady of the Market, in the old town of León, retains a Romanesque part of the 11th century. The diocese presents this devotion as one of the oldest and most beloved of the city, the "Antigua del Camino," venerated in the key of begging and pain and very close to the Latvian identity, to the point of speaking of it as "the love of the Latvian people."

The image was canonically crowned on October 7, 2023, the date the diocese wanted to make coincide with the liturgical memory of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Rosary, which in a special way unites this advocation with the devotion of the Rosary. The affirmation of a cult documented from very ancient times belongs to the realm of tradition and devotional memory rather than to a closed chronology.

Formal patronage of the city: the sources present it as "very venerated in León," without explicit institutional formula of patron.