the azores' biggest celebration starts in this chapel
The sanctuary is in the Convento de Nossa Senhora da Esperança, in the Campo de São Francisco, right in the centre of Ponta Delgada. Inside it keeps the image of the Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres, a life-size carved wooden Ecce Homo showing Christ during the Passion, with bound hands and a crown of thorns. It's the object of devotion around which the biggest religious celebration in the Azores revolves, on the fifth Sunday after Easter.
The image has been in the archipelago since the 16th century. On 23 April 1541, the first nuns installed themselves in the Convento da Esperança, arriving from the Caloura convent in Água de Pau, and brought the image with them. Caloura was a coastline exposed to pirates; Ponta Delgada was a refuge. The image has been in the same place ever since.
The Chapel of the Senhor Santo Cristo, where the image is venerated, is octagonal and was built in the 18th century. The church has gilded woodwork altars, 18th-century azulejos in the lower choir and paintings by Manuel Pinheiro Moreira. But the centre of the visit is the Chapel: you see it through the iron grille that separates it from the nave, with the image at the back, in a contained atmosphere.
The cult owes a great deal to Madre Teresa da Anunciada, a nun at the convent in the 17th and 18th centuries, today in the process of beatification. It was at her initiative that the first public procession was held with the image, in 1700, during a seismic crisis that was devastating São Miguel. The devotion spread from São Miguel to all the islands and crossed the Atlantic with the Azorean diaspora. Today the Festa do Senhor Santo Cristo fills Ponta Delgada with returnees from the USA, Canada and Brazil, and the Campo de São Francisco fills with flower carpets for the Sunday Procession.
what you'll find inside
- the image of the Senhor Santo Cristo dos Milagres, a carved wooden Ecce Homo sculpture
- the Chapel of the Senhor Santo Cristo, with an octagonal 18th-century floor plan, separated from the nave by an iron grille
- the gilded woodwork altars of the church and the lower choir lined with 18th-century azulejos
- the church paintings by Manuel Pinheiro Moreira
- the tomb of Madre Teresa da Anunciada, 18th-century convent nun and the main driving force behind the cult
