The Divine Pilgrim

Patron of Pontevedra and the Portuguese Way

In Pontevedra, a unique sanctuary with a shell-like plant of Vieira welcomes the Divine Pilgrimage, patron of the province and the Portuguese Way to Santiago, represented as a walker with embroidery and slave.

Origin and history

The tradition of the Brotherhood shows that in the 18th century French pilgrims on the way to Compostela brought the image of a Risuean Virgin who guided them, leaving in Pontevedra the advocation of the Virgin Pilgrim; in 1753 some children asked the Archbishop of Santiago for a brotherhood dedicated to the Virgin of the Way, antecedent of the present fellowship of the Divine Pilgrim.

The present sanctuary began to be built in 1778 at the crossing of roads next to the old Trabancas Gate, in late baroque with neoclassical elements; its unique feature is the plant in the form of a Vieira, a Jacobeo symbol, declared a historical-artistic monument in 1982. The image, dressed as a walker (mantle, embroidery, pumpkin, shell), is a reference for the pilgrims of the Portuguese Way.

Canonical coronation: not recorded.