Popayan’s Santo Domingo Cathedral is one of the most important historical and religious tourism sites in the whole city.
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During Popayan’s famous Holy Week celebrations, the city’s oldest church floods with visitors who come to admire its massive white stone bell tower, American Baroque style cedar altar and the church’s many Spanish and Ecuadorian artworks.
“Today it is one of the architectural jewels that we have here in Popayan,” said the church’s patriarch, Father Otto Eduardo Avedaño.
The Domincans were the first order to establish a church in Popayan and built the original cathedral out of mud and straw in 1552, but due to Popayan’s many earthquakes the church has been destroyed and reconstructed multiple times.
The church’s latest incarnation was designed by Spanish architect Antonio Garcia and built in the mid-1700s.
The church figures prominently in Popayan’s Holy Week celebrations. The Friday procession leaves from Santo Domingo and the church’s grounds also host rotating annual expositions.
On Good Friday the pasos holding the church’s statues are adorned with purple flowers, meant to symbolize mankind’s sins and penance, and then paraded through the city by some of the church’s most devout members.
