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"The Two Christs," carved and painted wood ©2001 Elroy Christenson This particular church has
several parts. Two large sanctuaries are used for
religious worship with traditional elaborately carved
and guilded altars. There are at least two smaller
chapels, an education room and a museum upstairs with an
assortment of remarkable religious memorabilia.
Like Bonfim, this church is used by the Candomblistas
who respect the saints included here. One large room in
the complex of the buildings has several life size
carved and painted statues of different saints showing
graphically the pain and suffering that they endured in
great detail, right down to the spurting blood created
with red streaming fabric. In a small adjoining
chapel these two Christs lay almost like mirrors to each
other, the larger one being in front of the smaller one.
They have been carved from wood and painted very
emotionally yellow. This fits in with the Counter
Reformation belief espoused in the 1600's to magnify and
illustrate these mystical scenes of pain and suffering
for the illiterate.
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