Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing, in alphabetical order, information about our 2021 Grant Recipients. This week we are happy to tell you more about The Anglican Centre at Santiago de Compostela Project.
For over 1200 years pilgrims have been walking the Camino de Santiago – the Way of Saint James – concluding at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. After Jerusalem and Rome, Santiago de Compostela is considered to be the third holiest pilgrimage site in Christendom. In 2019 more than 300,000 pilgrims arrived in Santiago, and the number of non-Roman Catholic pilgrims has risen. Though Rome, Jerusalem, and Canterbury each have an Anglican Centre to welcome and minister to pilgrims, Santiago does not.
In response to Carlos López, Bishop of the Spanish Anglican Church, who long envisioned establishing an Anglican Centre in Santiago de Compostela that offers hospitality, learning, hope and love to Anglican and other pilgrims, the Vestry approved, in 2019, a five-year grant commitment to provide pilgrims on the Camino de Compostela with safe and welcoming accommodations and a religious haven in a 40-room facility. This grant will also provide an ecumenical space to accommodate retreats, lectures, and classes, as well as include a chapel where clergy from various denominations can celebrate Holy Communion for their groups.
