Religion in Sevilla

17 May 2009

Two words capture my impression of religion in Sevilla: Catholic and devotional.

When we arrived a week ago, we received a free tourist map of Sevilla. It lists 82 monuments and places of interest in the city. Among them, more than half are religious: 32 churches, 12 convents, 4 chapels, 1 Basilica, 1 monastery, and, of course, the Cathedral. All this in a city of 700,000. Other than their names and locations, only two other elements of information are provided: century when established (century, mind you, not date!) and style (gothic, baroque, mudéjar, renaissance, neoclassical).

Ingrid and I wandered around the city this afternoon to look at some of these churches. At the beginning, we used the map to navigate from one to the next. Soon, though, we realized that all we needed to do was walk a few blocks in any direction and we would come upon another church.

Even though it was a Sunday afternoon, most were closed. The buildings were in various states of repair, from ones that looked extremely well kept to others that probably are no longer in use. Although the buildings were often centuries old, the ornamentation was sometimes much newer. Some of the exterior details I particularly like are shown here. The opening photo is from the wall surrounding the Cathedral, showing Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple. The detailed stone work at right in the second pair of photos is also quite nice. I don't know who is depicted in the chair. Above him appears a number, maybe representing the date 1624.



The middle photo shows a detail of metal work mounted on a church door. Below at left is one of many fine tile portraits that we saw on the outside of churches.

There were two especially interesting aspects of our exploration today. First, we visited the neighborhood of Macarena. Who can forget the mid 1990s famous song and dance from the one-hit wonders, Los del Rio. That song was about about girl from Macarena, Sevilla.

Much more enduring and much more significant for the locals, however, is Basilica de la Macarena, which houses a 17th century statue of the Weeping Virgin (Virgen de la Macarena, or La Esperanza). She is shown at right. Each year, during Semana Santa (which was several weeks ago) the statue is paraded through the streets.

Finally, we saw an impressive devotional activity this evening. Just as we were sitting down to dinner, we heard a drum beat out on the street. Investigating, we saw the beginning of a large procession. Hundreds of people were involved, beginning and ending with marching bands (drums and brass; very loud on these narrow streets!). In the middle was a large float with a beautiful statue, El Sagrado Corazón de Jesús ("Jesus of the sacred heart"), elaborately adorned with candles and flowers, and made of fine wood and gilded hardware. The float was very large, obviously very heavy, and was being borne through the streets of Sevilla on the shoulders of probably 30 large men, hidden except for their shuffling feet beneath crimson velour. Because of the incredible labor involved in moving the float, the procession moved slowly: during the hour we watched, it only traveled about three blocks. Another example of the vitality of Sevilla.