Santa Maria de Eunate

Octagonal Romanesque Church of the Way of Santiago · Muruzábal (Navarra)

In the middle of the fields of Valdizarbe, an enigmatic Romanesque church of octagonal plant - Santa María de Eunate - welcomes the pilgrim of the Way of Santiago as a protective Mother, between temperate legends and the silence of their burial.

Origin and history

Santa María de Eunate is a Romanesque church built in the second half of the 12th century, about 1170, of unique octagonal central plant surrounded by an outer cloister. He was born as a Marian hermitage linked to a local fellowship, not as a parish, in the middle of Jacobea, near the confluence of the Aragonese Way (Somport) and Rondesvalles. The burials found next to their columns, with shells of pilgrim, confirm their use as a cemeterial church of pilgrims.

It is often attributed to him by temperar origin, but no document attests to it; other hypotheses link it to the Hospitals of San Juan or to the foundation of a noble lady. The legend speaks of a queen whose burial would be under the stones, and of the custom of taking three turns to the enclosure. His devotion is focused on St. Mary as a protective Mother of the pilgrim, a spirituality of silence and recollection, with romanies and masses of the brotherhood.

Date of own feast, patronage and canonical coronation: not recorded in the sources.