Our Lady of Begoña of Almáciga

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Religious architecture · Year: 1948

The Almáciga hermitage was erected around 1936 under the name of Saint John the Baptist. This dedication changed in 1950 to Our Lady of Begoña, patroness of Biscay and, from that moment, also of Almáciga. This was due to a curious story.

On 27 August 1948, about thirty-five Biscayan pilgrims from Catholic Action who were on board en route to the Galician coasts to visit Santiago de Compostela, threw into the sea from the steamer Aragón on which they were travelling, near Cape Villano (La Coruña), a sealed bottle containing a written message and five images of the Virgin of Begoña.

In April of the following year, almost eight months later, three residents of the Almáciga hamlet found the bottle on the shore of the town's beach, one of the most beautiful in the northern sector of the Anaga massif. The locals handed over what they found to the village teacher, who, upon realising what it contained, wrote a letter that was sent to Martín del Valle, the person who provided his address in one of the documents placed inside the bottle.

In Bilbao, they could hardly believe what had happened when they received the letter. How was it possible that the drifting bottle had reached the northern coast of Tenerife? In an article by the Jesuit Andrés de Arístegui, published in La Gaceta del Norte , he urged that a statue of the Virgin of Begoña, like the one in Bilbao, be sent to Tenerife. And so it was; the image arrived at the port of Santa Cruz on 6 May 1950; eight days later it was also transported by sea and unloaded on the beach of Roque de Las Bodegas. 

Since then, the image has been kept in the Almáciga hermitage and the Virgin of Begoña was proclaimed patroness of the place. It remained there until the first decade of the 21st century, when it was decided to build a new church at the entrance to the hamlet. However, what seemed to be a quick solution became complicated over the years, mainly due to lack of financial resources. Finally, the church was completed in 2019 and the image installed there after two decades of delay. The temple was completed thanks to private contributions both from the inhabitants of the Anaga massif and from the Cofradía de Begoña de Bilbao (Begoña Brotherhood of Bilbao). 

Today Almáciga and the city of Bilbao, thanks to this curious story, maintain close ties.

28.571, -16.1991