General Information

Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción de María (Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary) is the oldest and largest cathedral in the Americas and seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Mexico. It is situated atop the former Aztec sacred precinct near the Templo Mayor on the northern side of Zócalo in downtown Mexico City.

Additional Information

The cathedral faces south and is approximately 54.5 metres wide and 110 metres long. It consists of two bell towers, a central dome, three main portals, five naves, 51 vaults, 74 arches and 40 columns. Inside the cathedral are five large altars, sixteen chapels, a choir area, a corridor, capitulary room, and sacristy. The cathedral has approximately 150 windows.

The cathedral has been the scene of several protests both from the Church and to the Church, including a protest by women over the Church’s exhortation for women not to wear miniskirts and other provocative clothing to avoid rape, and a candlelight vigil to protest against kidnappings in Mexico. The cathedral itself has been used to protest against social issues. Its bells were rung to express the archdiocese’s opposition to the Supreme Court upholding of Mexico City’s legalization of abortion.

Probably the most serious recent event occurred on 18 November 2007, when sympathizers of the Party of the Democratic Revolution attacked the cathedral. About 150 protesters stormed into Sunday Mass chanting slogans and knocking over pews. This caused Church officials to close and lock the cathedral for a number of days. The cathedral was reopened with new security measures, such as bag searches, in place.

Architecture: Highlights

The cathedral was built in sections from 1573 to 1813 around the original church that was constructed soon after the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlán, eventually replacing it entirely. Spanish architect Claudio de Arciniega planned the construction, drawing inspiration from Gothic cathedrals in Spain.

Architecture: Explained

The cathedral has four façades which contain portals flanked with columns and statues. The two bell towers hold a total of 25 bells. The tabernacle, adjacent to the cathedral, houses the baptistery and serves to register the parishioners. There are two large, ornate altars, a sacristy, and a choir. The cathedral is home to two of the largest 18th-century organs in the Americas. There is a crypt underneath the cathedral that holds the remains of many former archbishops.

Fourteen of the cathedral’s sixteen chapels are open to the public. Each chapel is dedicated to a different saint or saints, and each was sponsored by a religious guild. The chapels contain ornate altars, altarpieces, retablos, paintings, furniture and sculptures.

The main façade of the cathedral faces south. The main portal is centred in the main façade and is the tallest of the cathedral’s three portals. Statues of Saint Peter and Paul the Apostle stand between the columns of the portal, while Saint Andrew and James the Just are depicted on the secondary doorway. In the centre of this doorway is a high relief of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, to whom the cathedral is dedicated. This image is flanked by images of Saint Matthew and Saint Andrew. The coat of arms of Mexico is above the doorway, with the eagle’s wings outstretched. There is a clock tower at the very top of the portal with statues representing Faith, Hope and Charity, which was created by sculptor Manuel Tolsá.

The northern façade, built during the 16th century in the Renaissance Herrera style is the oldest part of the cathedral and was named after Juan de Herrera, the architect of the El Escorial monastery in Spain. The western façade was constructed in 1688 and rebuilt in 1804. It has a three-section portal with images of the Four Evangelists. The western portal has high reliefs depicting Jesus handing the Keys of Heaven to Saint Peter. The eastern façade is similar to the western one. The reliefs on the east portal show a ship carrying four Apostles, with Saint Peter at the helm. This relief is titled “The ship of the Church sailing the seas of Eternity”. While the eastern and western façades are older than most of the rest of the building, their third level has Solomonic columns which are associated with the Baroque period.

History: Highlights

After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the conquistadors decided to build their church on the site of the Templo Mayor of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan to consolidate Spanish power over the newly-conquered domain. They used the stones from the destroyed temple of the god of war Huitzilopochtli, principal Aztec deity, to build the church.

History: Explained

Architect Martín de Sepúlveda was the first director of this project from 1524 to 1532. Juan de Zumárraga, the first Bishop of the first See of the New World, established in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, promoted this church’s completion. Zumárraga’s cathedral was located in the north-east portion of the current cathedral. It had three naves separated by three Tuscan columns. The central roof was ridged with intricate carvings done by Juan Salcedo Espinosa and gilded by Francisco de Zumaya and Andrés de la Concha. The main door was probably of Renaissance style. The choir area had 48 seats made of ayacahuite wood crafted by Adrian Suster and Juan Montaño. However, this church was soon considered inadequate for the growing importance of the capital of New Spain.

In 1544, ecclesiastical authorities in Valladolid ordered the creation of new and more sumptuous cathedral. Eight years later, an agreement was reached whereby the cost of the new cathedral would be shared by the Spanish crown, encomenderos and Indians under the direct authority of the archbishop of New Spain. The construction began with the new church being built around the existing one in 1573. When enough of the cathedral was built to house basic functions, the original church was demolished to enable the construction to continue.

Because of the muddy subsoil of the site, work on the foundation continued past the work on the walls to 1581. In 1585, work on the first of the cathedral’s chapels began and by 1615, the cathedral’s walls reached to about half of their final height. Construction of the interior of the current cathedral began in 1623 and what is now the vestry was where Mass was conducted after the first church was finally torn down.

In 1629, work was interrupted by flooding, over 2 metres in depth. Parts of the city were damaged, especially around the main plaza or Zócalo. Because of such damage, this site was almost abandoned and a new cathedral project was begun in the hills of the Tacubaya area to the west. However, the construction of the cathedral was continued in its current location, and under the direction of Luis Gómez de Transmonte, the interior was finished and consecrated in 1667. At the beginning of the 18th century, the cathedral still lacked bell towers, the complete front façade, and many of the other features it has now.

In 1787, José Damian Ortiz de Castro was in charge of finishing work on the cathedral. He did most of the work on the bell towers, putting in most of the fretwork and capping them with roofs in the shape of bells. With his death in 1793, he did not live to see the cathedral completed, and Manuel Tolsá finished the temple by adding the cupola, the central front façade, the balustrades, and the statues of Faith, Hope and Charity at the top of the front façade. Tolsa’s work was the last major construction to the cathedral and the appearance it had when he finished is the basic look the cathedral has today.

The church was closed for four years while President Plutarco Elias Calles attempted to enforce Mexico’s anti-religious laws. Pope Pius XI closed the cathedral, ordering priests to cease their public religious duties in all Mexican churches. After the Mexican government and the papacy came to terms and major renovations were performed on the cathedral, it was reopened in 1930.

Over the centuries, the cathedral has suffered some damage. A fire in 1962 destroyed a significant part of the cathedral’s interior. The restoration work that followed uncovered a number of important documents and artwork that had previously been hidden.

Although a solid foundation was built for the cathedral, the soft clay soil it is built on has been a threat to its structural integrity. Dropping water tables and accelerated sinking caused the structure to be added to the World Monuments Fund list of the 100 Most Endangered Sites. Reconstruction work beginning in the 1990s stabilised the cathedral and it was removed from the endangered list in 2000.

In October 2007, a time capsule was found inside the stone ball base of a cross, in the southern bell tower of the cathedral. The lead box was filled with religious artefacts, coins and parchments, and hidden in a hollow stone ball. The ball was marked with the date of 14 May 1791, when the building’s topmost stone was laid. A new time capsule has been placed in July 2008.