A Blending of Religious Beliefs and Culture

A quick blog to share with you my experience visiting Santiago Atitlan's Catholic Church.
When walking through the church it is striking the evidence both for traditional Catholicism but also traditional Maya believes and religion.  The altar is by far the clearest and most direct evidence of this merging of faiths.  Throughout the new world the contact between European religions and those of Native Americans (First Nations Peoples) has resulted in complex merging of different cosmologies and world views.















Maya groups were subject to vicious attaches and abuses from the European clergy throughout the colonial period. Sacred Maya texts were burned and their authors' or practitioners' as heretics. A systemic ethnocide was undertaken throughout the Americas and the result was a great amount of suffering and cultural loss for indigenous groups. The result has been that while many indigenous groups practice the religion of the conquers (in this Catholicism), in this case the traditional ideas of Maya religions are still found interwoven throughout the Catholic church and the religious practices of its followers.

The central altar at Santiago Atitlan's Catholic Church was a deliberate attempt to recognize the integration of these religious and cultural traditions. In 1976 the altar was begun to be renovated by Diego Chavez Petzey and Nicolas Chaves Sojuel unde rthe direciton of Father Francisco Rother. The altar incorporates both traditional Catholic and Maya symbolism that was meant to show the unity of these traditions in the lives of the people of the church.  According to some at the church, the priest that succeeded Father Rother had tried to remove the Maya influence from the church but the community would not allow it.  Please enjoy the photos of this amazing blend of religious and cultural symbolism.
https://www.wingsofpeaceinternational.org/pdf/Altarpiece_Santiago_Atitlan.pdf