Last updated: July 15, 2021
Place
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and Medina Cemetery
Photograph by Marsi Mason, courtesy of Colorado State Historic Preservation Office
Quick Facts
Location:
Colorado Highway 12 Medina Plaza, Colorado
Significance:
Ethnic Heritage/Hispanic, Architecture
Designation:
Listed in the National Register – Reference number 100004628
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
MANAGED BY:
Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2019, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church and Medina Cemetery in Medina Plaza, Colorado, is locally significant for its association with the cultural traditions and practices of early Hispano settlers during the second half of the nineteenth century. The church has a historical association with Hispano cultural traditions and practices in the Purgatoire River Valley for more than 100 years. Hispano settlers who arrived from New Mexico in the 1860s and ’70s brought social and cultural traditions that had changed very little from the time their ancestors arrived from Spain.
Between 1902 and 1929, the church building served as the meeting hall, for los hermanos of the Sociedad de Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno, also known as the Penitente Brotherhood. A lay religious society, the Pentitente Brotherhood developed in New Mexico to fill the gap left when Mexico expelled Spanish priests in the early 1800s. Often misunderstood or suppressed early on, chapters consisted primarily of Hispanic males who participated in rituals and observances which included prayer, processions, and penitential devotions, including Holy Week re-enactments of the Passion.
Our Lady of Guadalupe Church provided a central social and cultural gathering place for the residents around Medina Plaza. The church was the focus of Hispano community life and the location of many important community events including baptisms, marriages, funerals, celebrations, and feasts. Sermons at the church were typically given in Spanish, but by the late 1940s English was more commonly used. Parishioners, along with friends and relatives from other plazas, came to the church to participate in special services and traditional processions, including the annual procession honoring the community’s patron saint, Our Lady of Guadalupe.