El Cobre Basilica

Cuba'S National Shrine, Holding The Image Of The Virgen De La Caridad Del Cobre, Patron Saint Of Cuba, Crowned By One Pope And Visited By Three · El Cobre, Santiago de Cuba

Twenty kilometres west of Santiago, above a village named for the copper mine that the Spanish worked with enslaved labour from the 1530s, stands the church that matters most in Cuba. Inside is the image of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre, the island's patron saint, which by tradition was found floating on a board in the Bay of Nipe around 1612 by two indigenous brothers and an enslaved African boy, and which was crowned at the request of veterans of the independence wars. Three popes have come. What makes the shrine particular to Cuba is that she is also Ochun, the Yoruba orisha of rivers and love, and pilgrims arrive with yellow flowers meaning both at once. In the offerings room are thousands of ex-votos - crutches, medals, hair, small gold figures - left by people whose prayers they believe were answered. Entry costs nothing, mass is said through the day, and on any ordinary morning the pilgrims themselves are the most striking thing in the building.

Basilica del Cobre, El Cobre, Santiago de Cuba, El Cobre, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

Open daily from early morning to evening, with masses through the day and more on Sundays. Entry is free; the offerings room and the gift stalls keep their own hours. THE FEAST DAY IS 8 SEPTEMBER, when tens of thousands of pilgrims arrive and the village is overwhelmed. It is an ACTIVE PLACE OF WORSHIP first and a visitor site second.

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