If I told you that this building is in Europe, would you believe me? And what if I told you it was finished merely eleven years ago? It is found in Zamora, Michoacan, and its construction took more than a century.
For the most part of its existence, this church, named the Sanctuary of Guadalupe, was nicknamed "the unfinished", due to the way in which Mexico developed in the twentieth century.
Its history starts the second of February 1898, during the feast of Candlemas, when the village of Zamora, began the construction of a splendid and enormous cathedral in the neo-gothic style, with abundant cut stone and 300 workers, who rapidly began building its foundation and finishing all its columns.
Four of its 5 naves were already roofed when they were forced to abandon their work, due to the intensification of the Mexican Revolution. Later on, it was expropriated by the Mexican government since, for many years, churches lost the right to private property.
During the Revolution and the later Cristero war, it became an army headquarters. During this dark period, the original plans were lost, and much of the stone which had been prepared for its construction. One of it walls was used for executions by firing squad, and it became known as the wall of punishment, where probably hundreds of people were murdered for resisting the repression of the Catholic Church by the Mexican government during those years.
I was eventually used as a parking lot for sanitation department trucks.
Eventually, though, in 1988, the bishop of Zamora at that time was able to have the site restored to the church, and two years afterward, construction began again, which concluded in the year 2009.
Its windows have beautiful stained glass in the modern style. Its pipe organ was made in Germany by Alexander Shucke. The wall of punishment was preserved intact, and visitors can still see the holes left by the army bullets.
8 сен 2024
