Our Lady of the Departure

"La Pejica" · Albox (Almería)

In the Sierra de las Estancias, over Albox, the great sanctuary of the Saliente keeps a very small and very dear image of the Virgin, "La Pejica," a goal of one of the most fervent romaneries of the Spanish southeast.

Origin and history

At the beginning of the 18th century, there was a hermitage on Mount Roel dedicated to Our Lady of the Unprotected of the Good Retiro. The present great shrine, of conventional air, was commanded to be built by Claudio Sanz and Torres, Bishop of Almería, from 1769, to welcome the pilgrims; a community of hermit guarded devotion. The image is a baroque size of tile wood of just 58 cm, of author and date unknown, popularly "La Pejica."

The tradition speaks of a vision of the Virgin to the young pastor Lazarus of Martos in the early 18th century. Iconographically he collects the woman of Revelation 12, crowned on the moon. Albox's patron by decree of 2018, is venerated as "Coronado" (a new crown was paid in 1987 after the previous one was stolen), although the year of a formal canonical coronation is not recorded in the sources.