BRASIL	BRAZIL
estado: São Paulo

map →

Aparecida is located at an elevation of 518 m about 177 km northeast of São Paulo and 257 km west of Rio de Janeiro. It is Brazil's most important pilgrimage site. The village of Aparecida was founded in 1732, as a district of Guaratinguetá. Aparecida remained a district of Guaratinguetá until 1928 when it became an independent municipality.

The statue of Our Lady [left] was found in 1717 in the Paraiba river at the port of Itaguaçu about 3 km north upstream of Guaratinguetá. According to the legend the little statue was found in pieces but as soon as it was complete the fishermen caught so many fish that their boat almost sank. Due to this miracle the statue received the sobriquet "Aparecida" ('who appeared'). The statue itself must have been made around 1650 and represents Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception (in Portuguese: Nossa Senhora da Conceição), a popular devotion in Portugal. The clay statue looks almost black since it had lost almost all of its colours during the years that it had been submerged in the river. In 1904 the Virgin was crowned with a golden crown. In 1929 Pope Pius XI proclaimed Nossa Senhora da Aparecida Queen of Brazil (Rainha do Brasil), in 1931 she was styled Queen and Patroness of Brazil (Rainha e Padroeira do Brasil). Her feast day is the 12th of October.

In 1732 the statue was taken to Porto Itaguaçu where the first shrine was built. When the numbers of pilgrims increased, a new chapel was built on a hill near Porto Itaguaçu. The chapel was opened in 1745 when the statue was brought in from its former site. An even bigger church was built in 1842–1888, on the same place of the former one. In 1893 it received the title Episcopal Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Aparecida (Episcopal Santuário de Nossa Senhora da Conceição Aparecida). It is known today as the "Old Basilica" (Basílica Velha), which received the status of a Basilica minor in 1908. In 1967 Pope Paul VI awarded a Papal Golden Rosen to the old basilica.

Already by 1926 it had been recognized that the church had again become to small for the numbers of pilgrims, yet it took until 1946 that the site for a new construction was prepared. The building works began eight years later. The "New Basilica" covers an area of 6,500 m², the central dome has a height of 61 m, the north tower has a height of 91 m. The monumental basilica is second in size only to St. Peter's in Rome. Pope John Paul II consecrated the new basilica in 1980 and in 1981 granted it the title Basilica minor.

(see also list of other basilicae minores depicted on glasses of this collection)

Aparecida is visited by more than 5 million pilgrims per year. A report of the Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People reported in 2001 that Aparecida is the world's third-most visited Catholic pilgrimage site after Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Ciudad de México, and the burial place of Padre Pio in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy.