The large hill seen just north and east of El Santuario de Chimayó was called “Tsimayo” by the nearby Pueblo Indians when the Spanish arrived in 1598. The Indians considered the hill to be sacred and the earth around it to have healing powers. In 1695, Spanish settlers began establishing little neighborhoods or “placitas” around the hill, and the area became known as “Chimayó.”

 

A counterpart and pre-cursor to El Santuario de Nuestro Señor Esquipulas in Chimayó is found in Esquipulas, Guatemala. Here in 1578, the Spanish Franciscans Christianized the Mayan Indians with a crucifix with a dark-skinned Jesus on a cross made of green wood from the Mayan tree of Life. The crucifix became credited with healing powers originally attributed to the hot springs and earth in that area. The same became true in Chimayó where the Indians believed the earth was healing and the crucifix of Señor de Esquipulas was also associated with healing.

 

There was a man named Bernardo Abeyta, who lived in a placita called El Potrero, named for the verdant pastures at the foot of the big hill, Tsimayo. Bernardo was a devout member of a penitent brotherhood known as the Society of Our Father Jesus of Nazareth. On a night during lent in 1810, he was doing penance on a foothill overlooking his fields and he saw a light emanating from the ground along the river below. When he went to investigate, he unearthed a crucifix. The crucifix was identified as the Christ of Esquipulas, since it had the same attributes as the actual Christ of Esquipulas in Guatemala. In both places the earth as well as the icon were attributed to healing. He called his neighbors to see what he had found, and was encouraged to build a shelter to protect the place of his find. Shortly thereafter, he with his fellow neighbors wrote a letter to Fray Sebastian Alvarez in Santa Cruz de La Cañada asking for permission to build a church where the crucifix had been found. The request had to be sent to the Bishop in Durango, Mexico, and in early 1814, permission was granted. The large mud brick church was completed in 1816.

 

Bernardo Abeyta commissioned Santeros (persons who carved or painted religious icons) from nearby communities to create Altar Screens with retablos (images painted on wooden panels) of various patron Saints to whom the community prayed for intercession for their special petitions). The five existing altar screens are the original ones made in the mid 1800’s and reflect a traditional Spanish Colonial religious folk art that is unique to this area of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Some of the wood carved icons now in the chapel were made by modern-day Santeros who follow the traditional art form.

 

The Chapel of our Lord of Esquipulas was privately owned by the family of Bernardo Abeyta until 1929, when a group of preservationists from Santa Fe bought the chapel with its contents from the family and donated it to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. In 1930, a corrugated metal roof designed by Architect John Gaw Meem, was installed on the building.  

 

In 1959, Father Casimiro Roca became the first priest assigned to administer the Santuario Chapel. Father Roca was from Barcelona, Spain, and of the Order of the Sons of the Holy Family. He restored the Santuario, and made it more accessible for giving Mass on a more frequent basis. Father Roca’s favorite admonition to pilgrims was that “it isn’t the dirt that heals, it’s the faith.”

 

In 1970, Father Roca nominated the Santuario de Chimayó to be in the National Historic Registry. For forty years he welcomed and encouraged pilgrims to the Santuario. The significance of El Santuario as a shrine is based on syncretism, i.e. two belief systems indicating the same ideal. The Santuario has today become an internationally known pilgrimage site, and the most significant pilgrimage site in the United States.

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