Our Lady of Candelaria

"La Morenita", Patron Saint of the Canary Islands

Revered since before the conquest of Tenerife, the Virgin of Candelaria unites the Christian faith with the memory of the Guanche people. She is the Patron Saint of the Canary Islands.

Before the conquest

The tradition places in 1390 the finding of the image by two Guanches, before the conquest of Tenerife. The Guanches venerated her by the name of Chaxiraxiand the present sanctuary was raised in the place of that indigenous devotion, by the cave of Achbinico.

Patron saint of the islands

In 1542 Pope Paul III entrusted the image and the sanctuary to the Dominicans; Clemente VIII it proclaimed Patronona of the archipelago in 1599, patronage ratified by Pío IX in 1867. The original image disappeared; the current size is the work of Fernando Estévez (1827). In 2011 Benedict XVI raised the sanctuary to the lower basilica.