Andean Christ

Creation

At the beginning of the 20th century, Pope Leo XIII sent a number of encyclicals asking for peace, harmony and loyalty to Christ the Redeemer . Considering this request and taking care of the possibility of a military conflict between Argentina and Chile because of contradictions over the border issue, the Bishop of the Cuyo region, Marcelino del Carmen Benavente, publicly promised to build a statue of Christ the Redeemer, who will remind of his covenant to keep the peace. The 7 meter high statue was made by sculptor Mateo Alonso (born in 1878 in Buenos Aires ) and was kept for some time at an exhibition on the patio of the Lacordaire School ( Spanish Lacordaire ) in Buenos Aires.

This school was attended by the Association of Christian Mothers, whose president was Angela de Oliveira César de Costa. She believed that it would be more correct to install a statue in the Andes, on the border separating the two countries, in case they sign a peace agreement. Thus, the statue would become a symbol of the union of two nations. Angela was worried about the possibility of conflict, including because her brother, who was a general, was in the mountains, where he was preparing for the seemingly inevitable war. With her help (she was acquainted with Argentine President Julio Argentino Roca ), they managed to attract the interest of both governments to the project.

In May 1902, Argentina and Chile signed a peace agreement, which became known as the May Covenants . Angela began to mobilize forces to obtain funds for collecting signatures, and together with Bishop Benavente asked to transport the statue to the province of Mendoza to install it on the trail along which General San Martin led the liberation army in 1817 , on the border between the two countries.

In 1904, the bronze parts of the statue were loaded onto a train and transported 1,200 km to the Argentinean village of Las Cuevas , and then with the help of mules raised to the top of the mountain at 3,854 meters above sea level. February 15, 1904 under the control of the engineer Conti was completed the construction of a granite pedestal (project Molina Sivita). About a hundred workers participated in the construction. The sculptor Mateo Alonso led the assembly of parts of the statue. The figure of Christ was set so that it looked along the border. Christ stands on the earthly hemisphere, his left hand holds a cross, and with his right he gives a blessing. The height of the statue reaches almost seven meters. A four-ton granite pedestal reaches a height of six meters.

Opening

March 13, 1904 three thousand Chileans and Argentines came to the opening of the monument, despite the fact that he was in a desert area. Also arrived the army of the two countries, which until recently were going to fight against each other. Together they fired a salvo. Presidents Julio Argentino Roca and Herman Riesco could not attend the ceremony and sent foreign ministers: Raimundo Silva Cruz (from Chile) and José Antonio Terri (from Argentina). The opening of the monument was attended by the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Mariano Antonio Espinosa, the bishops Marcelino del Carmen Benavente and Ramon Angel Hara from Ancuda .

At the magnificent ceremony, during which there was no shortage of champagne, several memorial plaques were opened: one was presented by Argentina, the other by the workers of Buenos Aires. The author of the first - the sculptor Alonso, she was made in the military workshops of Argentina. The board is an open book, on each sheet of which a woman is drawn, symbolizing Argentina and Chile. The Latin inscription reads: “Ipse est pax nostra qui fecit utraque unum” (“For He is our world, made one from both,” Eph. 2:14, Vulgata ).

Subsequent events

A few years later, severe weather destroyed the cross of Christ. It was restored in 1916 , using bronze, which was intended for the casting of commemorative medals dedicated to the 1904 event.

Several memorial plaques were discovered, on one of them (opened on January 17, 1937 ) the phrase uttered by Bishop Ramon Angel Haroy at the opening of the monument was broken: .

In 1993, due to climate and seismic activity that damaged the site, the stability of the monument was broken. The Mendoza government allocated funds to repair the monument and two nearby buildings, which were sometimes used as meteorological stations.

On March 13, 2004, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner and his Chilean counterpart Ricardo Lagos met near the monument to mark the centenary of its discovery.

Angela de Oliveira Cesar de Costa after the installation of the monument created the Peace Association in South America. She also wrote the book “Andean Christ” ( Spanish El Cristo de los Andes ), became a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize , and when World War I began , she collected signatures to ask the US president to stop firing. She died at the age of 83 in Buenos Aires, her grave is located in a cemetery in the Olivos quarter.

• Encyclopedia Krugosvet (Neopr.) . Andean Christ . The appeal date is September 14, 2008.