- Title Oviedo Asturias Centre
- Address Address: Pza. de Alfonso II (interior de la Catedral) ■ 33003 - Oviedo/Uviéu
- Owned by Owned by: Ecclesiastical
- Phone Phone: 985 219 642
- Email Email: reservas@catedraldeoviedo.com
- Site Site: https://catedraldeoviedo.com/
The Holy Chamber of the Cathedral of San Salvador in Oviedo/Uviéu is bright and splendid since its latest restoration, which has made it possible for it to show all its medieval beauty to the public since the 14th of April, making it a symbol of Asturias and a significant religious, cultural and tourist attraction.
Founded as a palatine chapel by an Asturian king, who history names as Alfonso II the Chaste, and who lived and loved in the 9th century, the Holy Chamber of the Cathedral of San Salvador de Oviedo/Uviéu has been an active witness to thousands of stories and vicissitudes: a meeting point for pilgrims, devotees, travellers, adventurers and even revolutionaries. For all of them, in one way or another, it has been an unavoidable reference point. It has laughed, felt, cried, beaten, prayed, thought at the same time as Humanity.
Like its creator, the Holy Chamber was home to the spiritual dreams of thousands of people who, from the 9th century to the present day, approached the sacred precinct for different purposes but with a common sensation: before their eyes stood one of the best-kept treasures of the culture and history of Western Europe over the last thousand years.
A hidden cave for the Holy Ark and the Holy Shroud
The passage of time has turned the Holy Chamber into a hidden, dark cave, which never ceased to house the Holy Ark and the Holy Shroud. The restoration carried out in recent months has given it luminosity and an ethereal atmosphere, very much in keeping with its nature. The medieval Ivorian patina, the perfection of the Romanesque carvings reproducing the figures of the apostles and the sobriety of the heads of the Calvary can now be appreciated in all their magnitude. There are no longer any paintings and the scars of Asturias' intense history can be seen, but the setting retains its message and attraction intact.
The new stage of the Holy Chamber began on 14 April 2014, and for a few days visitors - who enter in groups of no more than twenty-five people - were able to contemplate (specifically) until 26 April) the Holy Shroud, suitably protected in an anoxic chamber that makes its millenary survival possible. In the current year, the Shroud will be shown on two other occasions, on 14 and 21 September, coinciding with the Jubilee of the Holy Cross.
If Alfonso II were to raise his head and see the thousands of visitors swarming around Oviedo Cathedral these weeks, crowding the tower of San Miguel - the Romanesque tower of the cathedral - at the door of its Holy Chamber, he would see that his dream as an architect of medieval Europe has been fulfilled: Oviedo Cathedral is unique and will forever be the Santa Ovetensis; the Jacobean Route that he thought of and traced out is followed every year by thousands of pilgrims who proudly stamp their pilgrim's credentials in Oviedo, and the city is the capital of the Principality of Asturias...