Our Lady of the Snow (Sierra Nevada)

Patrona de Sierra Nevada · Dílar (Granada)

Patroness of Sierra Nevada, Our Lady of the Snow is remembered by a prodigy: in August 1717, two travelers surprised by a snow storm in the middle of summer, more than 3,000 metres away, were released from death after invoking it.

Origin and history

According to the tradition, on 5 August 1717 the priest Martin de Merida and his assistant, surprised by a snow storm in the Collado del Veleta, about 3,200 m away, kneeled and called upon the Virgin; they would have been seen by Mary with the Child, calming the storm and saving them from danger. Since then those cuts are called "Tagus of the Virgin." The story is pious-legendary, with no coetane documentation.

Moved by this prodigy, devotion raised successive hermitage in the saw: one in the Tajos de la Virgen (disappeared), another in 1724 in the Prados del Borreguil, and in 1745 the "Old Hermitage" in the Picón del Savial. When she was far from Dylar, in 1796, she was ordered to build the present sanctuary. The title of the Nieves is celebrated on August 5, the date of the ancient prodigy of the snow of Santa Maria la Mayor in Rome.