[Gocamino] What's the fuss over the Holy Door?

[Rosina]

Hello  Cherie, Chris, Peter, Mary and all,

Ok.  I’ll try to respond to your many queries about the door with the caveat that my knowledge is fragmentary and personally interpreted and it may be fraught with deficiencies. But since so many of you have asked me, here’s what I know:

The “Holy Door” in the Santiago Cathedral is somewhat related to the Catholic rite of “confession”. As a child, I was taught that confession leads to absolution, (salvation?) and that absolution comes from the act of confession itself.  Self-acceptance of one’s errors and acts that bring guilt and shame, genuine sorrow for having committed them and a firm resolve not to repeat them brings “absolution”, or forgiveness, to the soul and conscience. This can only come from the self and it brings the spiritual peace understood as “being forgiven”. Because such self-redemption is pretty hard to negotiate on one’s own, priests-confessors are guides and helpers in the effort.  Sort of “sponsors” that articulate words to nudge one through the process. 

In the middle Ages people seem to have been a great deal more in need of tangible and material articulations of their beliefs than we are, henceforth the search for relics, the undertaking of pilgrimages to special sites, and so on. Quite a few  of the pilgrims who went to Santiago in those  centuries were criminals sent to “atone” for their crime-sins, or were sick p
eople who wanted to “cleanse their souls” while they were still alive. Some believed that their physical illness were “punishment” for misdeeds.

The Santiago Cathedral had (and has) three main doors and seven minor ones.  Many guilt-laden or sick pilgrims felt unworthy of going into the church through the main doors and found an obscure little side door that afforded a full view of the image of the Apostle illuminated by the sunlight streaming through the high windows. They reached  this unobtrusive door  and in sight of the apostle’s image, and dazzled by it, knelt at the door before crossing it  and begged Santiago’s help in their redemption and the peace that perceived “forgiveness”  would bring them.  So many pilgrims reported achieving such state of grace that the door became known as “La Puerta del Perdon”, or “La Puerta de Perdones” (the door of absolution, forgiveness, soul-and- conscience-cleansing or what have you).  A great many of the pilgrims,  over and over, who achieved such state of bliss, swore that they were accompanied by the souls of millions of pilgrims who had gone before them rooting for them to succeed as they approached the door.

In those days the Cathedral was open night and day and pilgrims who went in stayed inside for days. A great many, in fact, died right there. They would stay, mostly in the balconies and the front of the church, for days, which gave rise to the 
use of the Botafumeiro meant to mask the foul odors of sick and dying people with incense. 

But, also, a surprisingly number of pilgrims who had gone to Santiago expecting an imminent death because of their illnesses became “miraculously cured” after crossing the little door.  Whether “miracles” are the logical consequence of auto-suggestion and goal-directed energies powered by conviction, or vice versa, cannot be known (the Gospels tell us that “Faith will move mountains”). What is known is that so very many of the sick pilgrims were healed after going through the small door that the entrance inevitably became known as a “Holy Door”.

In 1175 Pope Alexander III ratified the earlier proclamation of Pope Calixtus II (of Codex fame) naming the years in which the July 25th Feast of Santiago falls on a Sunday”Holy Jacobean Years”. It was then decided that because of its special graces the “Door of Forgiveness” or “Holy Door” should be walled up and re opened only during Holy Years.

The widespread popularity and reputation of the door eventually attracted so many abuses and misuses by corrupt and dishonest individuals that the decision to keep the door walled up, except for “Holy Years” became, and remains, entrenched.  But since hope, faith, illusion, tradition or whatever lives eternal, the desire to go through the door is as strong as ever.

And that’s pretty much what the fuss about the Door is a
ll about.

Between 1611 and 1615 the structure outside the door on Quintana Square that we see today was built to protect the original one.  There is a grill through which one can see a small open space leading to the original door. Surrounding the grill door there are 24 statues that came from Maestro Mateo’s old stone choir that used to be in the Cathedral. These statutes represent biblical and gospel figures, including Solomon and Moses and Saint Thomas and Saint Mark. On top of the door there is a lovely statue of Santiago himself, as a pilgrim, flanked by his disciples Athanasius and Theodore.

The opening of the Door, on the evening preceding the start of a Holy Year, is a tremendous affair.  I was there the last time that the door was opened, on December 31, 2003, and can tell you what went on, if you are interested.

There are two terrific books that have riotous accounts of Santiago and Camino goings-on around medieval times: one is “Aventura y Muerte  en el Camino de Santiago” (adventures and death in the Camino) and the other is “Picardias en el Camino” (Chicaneries in the Camino). Both are wonderfully informative and spell-binding. It is unlikely, however, that they are available in languages other than Spanish, although both are relatively new. (Sigh!)

Hugs!

Rosina