Our Lady of Guapulus

Marian devotion of Quito (Pichincha)

According to the tradition, devotion is born of the Virgin of Guadalupe sevillana, whose image and cult were brought to the Royal Audience of Quito in the first years of the colony. The Quiteña advocation was set up around a small chapel erected in the area of Guashayacu (today Guapulo), on the communication routes to the east, soon becoming a place for pilgrimage and supplication for those who took a journey to the Amazon lands.

Main data

Origin and history

According to the tradition, devotion is born of the Virgin of Guadalupe sevillana, whose image and cult were brought to the Royal Audience of Quito in the first years of the colony. The Quiteña advocation was set up around a small chapel erected in the area of Guashayacu (today Guapulo), on the communication routes to the east, soon becoming a place for pilgrimage and supplication for those who took a journey to the Amazon lands.

En la documented historyit is clear that 1587 a first chapel was erected in Guashayacu, dedicated to the Mother of God under the title of Our Lady of Guadalupe de Guapulo. Subsequently, in 1593 / 1596, the bishop of Quito Fray Luis López de Solís ordered the construction of a second, more solid church. The sanctuary as such is considered to be founded in 1620and the present church - third building - began to 1649 and was concluded around 1693–1696, setting as the primer Marian shrine of the current Ecuador. Since then, Guapulo has been held for centuries as a "devout pilgrimage site of the Quiteña population."

The image and the sanctuary

La Virgin of Guapulo is a Marian image linked to the iconography of Our Lady of Guadalupe (of Sevillian root), adapted by the Quiteña school; it is venerated on the main altar of the Church of Our Lady of Guapulus. The available sources especially highlight their character as an early and miraculous advocation, but do not provide, with verifiable precision, complete technical details on materials or image authorship; therefore, no consta a comprehensive description of your invoice in the sources consulted.

The temple is officially called Church of Our Lady of Guapulus o Guapulo Sanctuary. It was built in predominantly style Baroque Quiteño, with a cruz latina, approximately 60 m long by 27 m wide on the cruise, and a great cúpula central. The interior has rich colonial decoration, with jars and handmade of mudejar taste, while the façade combines neoclassical elements with a two-body bell tower. It does not know that it has the title of minor basilica ni de National sanctuary; in practice it works as Marian and parish sanctuary of the Archdiocese of Quito, with a convent and a small museum (Fray Antonio Rodríguez Museum).

Sponsorship and coronation

Our Lady of Guapulus is traditionally held as historical pattern of travellers which left Quito to the east and the Amazon, due to its location on the old path of the conquerors and explorers. The environment of the sanctuary conserves a monument to Francisco de Orellana, explorer of the Amazon, which highlights this symbolic link between the Virgin of Guapulo and the routes to the jungle. The advocation is above all devotional patron of district and parish of Guapulo and, in a broad way, a historical Marian reference for the city of Quito and its region.

In the sources consulted does not contain a documented canonical coronation of the image of Our Lady of Guapulo, no secure data on the year or the pontifical delegate are found.

Party and devotion

The references point out that the main feast of Our Lady of Guapulo is celebrated around 8 September, in line with the Nativity of the Virgin MaryHowever, open sources do not clearly indicate a different liturgical date officially established for the sanctuary, and this reference is therefore kept as approximate. On these dates, solemn celebrations, Eucharist and festive activities are organized in the Guapulo district, with the influx of the faithful of Quito and other areas, according to local chronicles and tourist testimonies.

Over the centuries, the sanctuary has been a place of pilgrimages of the Quiteña population, who come both through Marian devotion and in thanksgiving for favors and so-called miracles attributed to the intercession of the Virgin. The tradition of walking through the steep down to Guapulo, as well as the contemplation of the landscape that opens to the valley of Tumbaco, are part of the devotional imagination of the place. The parish and sanctuary today maintain a vida litúrgica activawith frequent celebrations also transmitted by digital means.

Link to the Rosary

The sources consulted do not contain a specific and documented partnership between the advocation of Our Lady of Guapulus and a unique fellowship or practice of Rosary (for example, an archcofradia of the Rosary officially linked to the sanctuary).

However, as a Marian sanctuary with strong popular roots, devotion to Our Lady of Guapulus is naturally inserted into the spirituality of the Rosary, oración propia de los santuarios marianos de tradición hispanoamericana. En el contexto de esta advocación, el rezo del Rosario permite: – contemplar los mysteries of Christ's life de la mano de María, tal como la piedad quiteña ha venido haciendo desde el período colonial; – presentar a la Virgen las súplicas de road and travel protection, en continuidad con su papel histórico de patrona de viajeros hacia el oriente; – unir la memoria de los benefits and miracles attributed to the Virgin of Guapulus with the paused meditation of the Gospel, which the Rosary proposes mystery to mystery.

Thus, even without a specific legal or historical link documented, the Rosary is presented as the privileged mode to accompany today the devotion to Our Lady of Guapulus, in line with the Marian tradition of the Church and the spiritual sensitivity of the faithful of Quito.