Our Lady of the Pillar

El Pilar de la Mola · Formentera

On the plateau of the Mola, on the end of Formentera, the Pilar church keeps the "Pilar," an advocation so rooted that in the Mola, who prays, prays to the Virgin of the Pilar.

Origin and history

The title of the Pilar in the Mola dates back to the 18th century, linked to the Bishop Manuel Abad Lasierra, natural of Aragon, when he served as bishop of the diocese of Ibiza and Formentera - which he helped to reorganize after centuries of depopulation on the island. The Pilar de la Mola church is one of the most emblematic temples of Formentera; in the Mola there was also, in the Middle Ages, an ancient Augustin monastery called Santa Maria de Formentera, dissolved in the early 14th century.

The devotion to the "Pilarica" is deeply rooted in the Mola: as the local testimony is collected, "in the Mola, who prays it to the Virgin of the Pilar." Its patron parties are held around October 12, the festival of the Pilar. The universal vocation of the Pilar evokes the apparition of the Virgin to the Apostle James in Zaragoza, on a pillar or pillar.

Formal island patronage and canonical coronation: they are not safely recorded in the sources.