Señor de los Milagros
Traditions · Lima, Pérou
The festival
It is one of the largest Catholic processes in the world: in October, the "purple month", hundreds of thousands of faithful in purple clothing accompany in the streets of Lima the Cristo Moreno, Christ of Pachacamilla. The original image is a mural painting of 1651, attributed to an Angolan slave, on an adobe wall in the neighborhood of Pachacamilla: the earthquakes of 1655 and 1687 shaved all around it, except this wall — the founding miracle.
Since 1687, an oiled copy, worn on andas of silver and gold by the cuadrillas of the Hermandad, comes out of the sanctuary of Las Nazarenas: on the first Saturday of October, then on 18, 19 and 28 October, and one last time on November 1. The devotion, born in the Afro-Peruvian Lima, has become the religious symbol of Peru as a whole.
Good to know
October is the "purple month" (my morado) in Lima; the faithful wear purple habit in devotion.