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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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