Our Lady of Montemayor

Patron saint of Moguer (Huelva)

Patron saint of Moguer, Our Lady of Montemayor has been venerated since the Middle Ages in her hermitage in the municipality, and was proclaimed patron saint of the city after the protection attributed to her in the cholera epidemic of 1854.

Origin and history

The hermitage of Montemayor is documented from the late 14th century (c. 1380), and a will from 1431 confirms a devotion established in the Late Middle Ages. Tradition places the "Invention" (discovery) of the image in 1470 in the hollow of an oak tree on Mount Tamar, by Alfonso Núñez.

In 1854, during the cholera epidemic, the Moguer Town Council proclaimed her patron saint (co-patron saint with Saint Joseph), interpreting the absence of contagion as the Virgin's protection. The image was destroyed in 1936 and later remade. It was canonically crowned on June 15, 1991, and in 1993 Saint John Paul II prayed before it in the parish church of La Granada in Moguer.