Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Alentejo will become ... - Southern Region

Diocese of Beja and humanitarian organization Order of Malta will collaborate to make the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Alentejo “accessible to all” and support the pilgrims, which have increased “substantially.”

Through an agreement “innovative” with the motto “Making accessible the Camino de Santiago to all”, the two institutions will “create conditions on the ground for the guidance and reception of pilgrims,” ??which have risen “substantially in recent years,” explains Department of Historical and Artistic Heritage of the Diocese of Beja (DPHADB), in a statement sent to Lusa.

According to DPHADB, the Sovereign Military Order of the Hospital of St. John of Rhodes and of Malta, known as Order of Malta, performs “remarkable work in the service of pilgrims” of the Camino de Santiago, an “experience that aims to extend the new territories of Alentejo” through the agreement.

The agreement, which also provides appreciation of the spiritual and material heritage of the Order of Malta, which “took on a very important presence in the Alentejo”, will be signed on Thursday in a ceremony from 19:30 in the parish church of Santiago do, indicates DPHADB.

The Camino de Santiago, designation of the various routes used by pilgrims who follow toward the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in the Spanish region of Galicia, dating back to the ninth century and through the whole of Europe, “from the ends Russia and Scandinavia to the Mediterranean and the shores of the British Isles, “explains DPHADB.

The road was classified as the first European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe in 1987, and some years later, UNESCO awarded him the status of a World Cultural Heritage, first in Spain (1993) and then in France (1997), “something that is intended to extend to other European countries,” the DPHADB.

Portugal is a “privileged segment” of the “vast cultural network” Camino de Santiago, which is “present throughout almost all of mainland”, says the DPHADB, that during the last decade, has developed “an intense work of rediscovery” of the route in the Alentejo.

The work, which has been directed by the DPHADB, José António Falcão, and count on the participation of experts from universities and museums Portuguese French, Irish, Spanish and German, is producing “significant fruit, allowing to bring to light monuments, works of art and archival documents long forgotten.”

Defined scientific work, it is necessary to create conditions for the guidance and reception of pilgrims, says the DPHADB, explaining that, in this sense, has been dialogue with institutions that can provide support to those who follow on foot, bike or horse to Galicia, but also to other shrines, as Our Lady of Fatima or Aires (Viana do Alentejo).

The cooperation involves municipalities, parishes, associations, fire departments, fraternities and Holy Houses of Mercy, the need DPHADB, stating that “the time has come of the Diocese of Beja unite their efforts with those of other age-old institution “, the Order of Malta.