Cusco lies at some 3,400 metres in the southern Peruvian Andes, the capital of the Inca empire before it became the seat of the first bishopric in Spanish South America. Colonial churches rest on Inca walls across the old city, and on the Plaza de Armas the Cathedral keeps a dark-skinned crucified Christ whom the city calls the Señor de los Temblores, the Lord of the Earthquakes. viajero tours+1
He is Cusco's Patrón Jurado, its sworn patron, proclaimed so by the people of the city after a plague ended during his procession. On the Monday of Holy Week he is carried out of the Cathedral on a litter and through the streets, and tens of thousands fill the Plaza de Armas and the roads into it to receive his blessing from the front of the Cathedral. Red petals of the ñucchu, a flower of the Andean fields, fall on him from the balconies along the way. wikipedia+3
Pilgrims pray before him at his altar and ask his help, and for generations some have written their petitions on paper and pressed them in through the wound in his side. In Cusco he is addressed as Taytacha, little father. wikipedia
📜 History & Spiritual Significance
The first bishopric of Spanish South America. Pope Paul III erected the Diocese of Cusco in 1537 and named the Dominican friar Vicente de Valverde its first bishop. The first cathedral was the Iglesia del Triunfo, raised beside the palace of the Inca Wiracocha on the site of the Inca ceremonial hall of Suntur Wasi. The Cathedral Basilica of the Virgin of the Assumption was built over the palace itself, through the sixteenth century and most of the seventeenth, by a succession of architects. viajero tours+2
The image called the Lord of the Earthquakes. Tradition holds that the crucifix was carved in Spain under Philip II, given dark features so that the indigenous people of Peru could recognise themselves in the figure on the cross, and shipped to the port of Callao for the journey inland. A story told in Cusco adds that the muleteer who carried it kept the carving at Mollepata and had a local image-maker produce the Christ that was delivered to the Cathedral; the image in the Cathedral is said to be that second carving. Conservation work found its body made of linen fibre, the head of maguey and the hands and feet of balsa wood — materials of the Andes. In the Cathedral it was first honoured as Cristo de la Buena Muerte, the Christ of the Good Death, invoked for a peaceful end. wikipedia
The earthquake of 1650. In late March 1650 an earthquake levelled much of Cusco. The people carried the Christ out of the Cathedral and set him in its doorway facing the city; the shaking subsided, and the image took the name it bears. The same earthquake brought down part of the Cathedral's vaulting and altered the upper towers of its façade. In 1720 a plague in the city ended after the image was carried through the streets, and the people proclaimed him their sworn patron in place of Santiago, whom the Spanish had named. wikipedia+2
The procession of Holy Monday. The procession was instituted in the year of the earthquake and moved in 1741 to the Monday of Holy Week, which it opens. It leaves the Cathedral for the church of Santa Teresa, where the sudario about the Christ's waist is changed, then for La Merced, where the Virgin of Solitude waits for him, and comes back to the Plaza de Armas. At the blessing the litter is turned to the right, to the front and to the left, the bearers bowing at each turn, while the Cathedral bells ring and the pututus, the great Andean conch horns, sound. Those who carry him say the weight of the litter is the weight of the bearer's sins. wikipedia
The letters inside the image. Restorers working on the Christ found sixty-one letters inside the body, put in through the wound in the chest, the oldest of them written in 1762 — petitions, thanks and griefs left where the writers believed he would read them. The church authorities had known of the letters and left them where they lay. The Christ is also called Cristo Moreno, the dark Christ; the colour comes from centuries of candle smoke and incense. His festivity is recognised as Cultural Heritage of the Nation by the Peruvian state. wikipedia+1
Under the colonial church, Inca stone. Two blocks from the Plaza de Armas the Dominicans founded their convent over the Qorikancha, the chief sanctuary of the Inca empire, dedicated to the sun and once sheathed in gold. The earthquake of 1950 brought down much of the colonial building and laid bare the Inca walls beneath it, ashlar blocks fitted without mortar; what was rebuilt kept both, the Inca masonry and the Dominican church above it. The same meeting of two worlds is in the Cathedral: a stone honoured by some worshippers as a gift of the Inca god Wiracocha stands near the main door, approached with offerings of coca leaves, and the Cathedral's best-known canvas, Marcos Zapata's Last Supper, sets a dish of roast guinea pig, cuy, before Christ and the apostles. wikipedia+3
☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Cusco
Cusco Cathedral
Catedral Basílica de la Virgen de la Asunción
The cathedral of the Archdiocese of Cusco, on the Plaza de Armas, built over the Inca palace of Kiswarkancha. The Señor de los Temblores has his own altar, with the images of Our Lady of Sorrows and St John the Evangelist beside him; the nails in his hands and feet are of gold, and the crown he wears is a replica of the one a viceroy gave him, which was stolen. Two chapels stand at the same address and open into the same complex: the Iglesia del Triunfo, the first church of Cusco, which holds the crypt of bishop Vicente de Valverde and the tomb of the chronicler Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, and the Templo de la Sagrada Familia. The great bell María Angola, cast from metal given in part by a widow of the city, is heard far out beyond the walls. The Piedra de Wiracocha stands near the main door. wikipedia+4
Qorikancha
Templo y Convento de Santo Domingo del Cusco
The golden enclosure — the name in Quechua — was the chief sanctuary of the Inca empire, dedicated to the sun, and the point from which the ceque lines were drawn across the empire. The Spanish stripped the gold from its walls, and the Dominicans built their church and convent on its foundations. Rooms identified with the sun, the moon, the stars and the thunder survive inside the complex, with a stone altar among them. The church above holds Cusco School canvases of the lives of St Dominic and St Vincent Ferrer, and a Baroque pulpit. On 24 June the Inca festival of Inti Raymi, revived in the modern era, is staged in part on these grounds. wikipedia+1
Church of St Blaise
Templo de San Blas
The parish church of the San Blas quarter, a climb of some ten minutes above the Plaza de Armas, on the Inca neighbourhood of T'oqokachi; it was among the first parishes founded for the indigenous people of Cusco, in the middle of the sixteenth century. It was rebuilt after the same earthquake, plain, on a Latin cross, in adobe and stone. Its cedar pulpit, carved by the indigenous master Juan Tomás Tuyro Túpac under Bishop Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo, is counted among the finest wood carving of colonial America, and is what most pilgrims make the climb to see. The church holds Cusco School paintings of the life of St Blaise and of the raising of Lazarus, attributed to Diego Quispe Tito. wikipedia+2
🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations
Procession of the Señor de los Temblores — Monday of Holy Week
The devotional centre of Holy Week in Cusco. The image leaves the Cathedral in procession for Santa Teresa and La Merced and returns to bless the city from the front of the Cathedral, where the crowd fills the Plaza de Armas and the streets that run into it. The brotherhood of the Señor de los Temblores prepares the image, provides a new sudario each year, and carries the litter.
Patronal feast of the Señor de los Temblores — last Sunday of October
The Christ is moved to the high altar of the Cathedral and presides at the Mass offered to him, remaining there until the celebrations close; his own retable is cleaned while he is away from it. The feast was kept on the Exaltation of the Cross before it was moved to the Sunday of Christ the King.
Cruz Velacuy — May
The cross on the bell tower of the church of St Blaise is dressed and watched over for the May observance of the Feast of the Cross, a custom kept through the Cusco region.
🛏️ Where to Stay
Hotel Plaza de Armas Cusco (hotel) — On the Plaza de Armas itself, a short walk from the Cathedral and ten minutes from the church of St Blaise. Rooms with parquet floors and private bathrooms, some looking over the city; a buffet breakfast with tropical fruit is served in a dining room facing the square, and the hotel runs a free one-way transfer from the airport. Reception is staffed through the night, which suits pilgrims on early flights from Lima. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel
More hotels in Cusco on Booking.com →
Accommodation available to book near Cusco. Pilgrim houses and religious guesthouses are listed above — many take bookings directly and do not appear on booking sites.
🚗 Getting There
By Air: Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport lies some 5 km from the historic centre, a drive of between ten and thirty minutes depending on traffic, with daily flights from Lima and other Peruvian cities. Cusco stands at about 3,400 metres, and the altitude is felt on arrival: the sound advice from every local source is to go slowly on the first day, drink water, and leave the walking of the city until the body has adjusted.
Local Transport: Official airport taxis wait at the terminal, and private transfer companies will meet a flight if booked in advance. In the city, licensed taxis are the usual choice and the fare is agreed before boarding; public buses run on fixed, very low fares.
On Foot: The Cathedral, the Qorikancha and the church of St Blaise are all within walking distance of the Plaza de Armas. St Blaise is the farthest, some ten minutes uphill, and the climb is steeper than the distance suggests at this altitude.
Onward: For the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu, private transfer companies run fixed-price vehicles from the city, and the trains are operated by PeruRail and IncaRail.
📚 Further Reading
Fernando E. Elorrieta Salazar & Edgar Elorrieta Salazar. Cusco and the Sacred Valley of the Incas — An illustrated guide to the Inca-era sites of Cusco and the valley below it, read as a field companion by many who walk the region.
🎥 Recommended Videos
Señor de los Temblores vuelve a casa tras compleja restauración — Exitosa Noticias covers the return of the image to the Cathedral after its restoration. In Spanish.
🔗 Useful Links
EMUFEC — Lunes Santo — The municipal festivities body of Cusco, on the Holy Monday procession and the rest of Holy Week in the city.
🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations
Copacabana (428 km) — The carved Virgin of Copacabana, patroness of Bolivia, in her basilica on the shore of Lake Titicaca.
🪶 Closing Reflection
Among the letters restorers found inside the image was one written by a devotee of Cusco in 1908:
"As you well know, I live only in the hope of you and of Mother Mary, who is also my Mother. Of whom shall I ask, if not of you? The things I ask of you are five, in memory of your five precious wounds…"
— A letter left inside the Señor de los Temblores, Cusco, 30 October 1908
Sources
- 1Viajero Tours – Catedral del CuscoSpanishviajerotours.com/es/blog/catedral-del-cusco
- 2Wikipedia – Señor de los TembloresSpanishes.wikipedia.org/wiki/Señor_de_los_Temblores
- 3EMUFEC (Empresa Municipal de Festejos del Cusco) – Lunes SantoSpanishemufec.gob.pe/lunes-santo
- 4Diario Correo – Reviva la procesión y bendición del Señor de los Temblores en CuscoSpanishdiariocorreo.pe/edicion/cusco/reviva-la-procesion-y-bendicion-del-senor-de-los-temblores-en-cusco-video-810203
- 5Cusco Perú – El Señor de los TembloresSpanishcuscoperu.com/es/festividades-y-eventos/marzo-abril/el-senor-de-los-temblores
- 6Wikipedia – Catedral del CuzcoSpanishes.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catedral_del_Cuzco
- 7Wikipedia – Cusco CathedralEnglishen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusco_Cathedral
- 8Wikipedia – CoricanchaEnglishen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coricancha
- 9Salkantay Trekking – Qorikancha: Temple of the SunEnglishsalkantaytrekking.com/blog/qorikancha-temple-of-the-sun
- 10Machu Picchu Travelers – Catedral del CuscoSpanishmachupicchutravelers.com/catedral-del-cusco
- 11Machu Travel Peru – Cathedral of CuscoEnglishmachutravelperu.com/blog/cathedral-cusco
- 12Wikipedia – Iglesia de San Blas (Cusco)Spanishes.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iglesia_de_San_Blas_(Cusco
- 13Cusco Perú – San Blas ChurchEnglishcuscoperu.com/en/travel/cusco/temples-convents/san-blas-church
- 14De Perú – Templo de San BlasSpanishdeperu.com/cultural/museos/templo-de-san-blas-4411
Last updated:
