“In città molto lontane, l’immagine del Señor de los Milagros continua a riunire i peruviani che trovano in quella devozione un modo per mantenere i legami con la loro terra,” disse Papa Leone XIV alle autorità nel Gran Teatro Nazionale di Lima, secondo Vatican News.
That devotion now anchors an international exhibition titled “Nella Casa del Señor,” installed inside the Cathedral of Pucallpa ahead of a papal visit to the city on Sunday, November 15, as part of an apostolic journey to Peru. Vatican News reported that the modular exhibition explores the historical, iconographic, and anthropological dimensions of the purple Christ through garments, brotherhoods, and processions.
The display brings together eight panels tracing the narrative from Genesis to Saint Peter’s Square. Curators Adine Gavazzi and Lorenzo Cantoni designed the project to examine how a 1651 image painted by an enslaved Angolan man on a Lima wall expanded into a global phenomenon.
Cantoni explained to Vatican News that the Genesis narrative places the origin of garments in human vulnerability after the loss of paradise. The display incorporates Cusqueña painting traditions and drawings by Andean chronicler Guaman Pomp to illustrate early humanity.
“La mostra parte da una domanda semplice: perché ci vestiamo?” Cantoni told Vatican News, describing how garments express care and dignity following the fall.
Gavazzi explained to Vatican News that the devotion centers on a miraculous wall in Pachacamilla that survived devastating earthquakes. The site represents a convergence of European Christian iconography, the public faith of enslaved African populations, and ancient Andean sacred spaces.
“È un’immagine di Cristo crocifisso dipinta, secondo la tradizione, nel 1651 da un anonimo schiavo angolano su un muro dell’antico quartiere di Pachacamilla, a Lima,” Gavazzi told Vatican News. The survival of that mural during seismic events established a focal point where multiple cultural memories intersect.
The project, titled “Habitus Fidei,” examines the dual meaning of the term as both physical garment and spiritual virtue.
Confraternity members maintain active community support systems, including the Hermandad del Señor de los Milagros de Nazarenas in Lima. Gavazzi noted that the annual October procession transforms the metropolitan landscape into a ritual territory through incense, purple robes, and coordinated carrying of the heavy platform.
That tradition has since crossed international borders. Vatican News reported that by 2012 processions took place in approximately 260 cities worldwide. In 2025, at least 52 brotherhoods globally participated in a simultaneous worldwide levantada to lift the platform together, extending the devotion from urban centers to remote locations like the Asháninka ceremonial house in Mayantuyacu.
La Hermandad del Señor de los Milagros de Nazarenas comprises more than 4,700 members distributed across twenty carrying squads, incense bearers, singers, and honorary brothers, according to Vatican News.
The “Nella Casa del Señor” exhibition was allestita nella Cattedrale di Pucallpa for the papal visit.
“Una devozione nata da un muro di Lima rivela così la sua forza dentro un orizzonte cattolico: universale,” Vatican News reported of the global spread.
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