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Church of Santa María de Mixós

Monterrei, Verín, Ourense

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Church of Santa María de Mixós

Monument · Monterrei, Verín, Ourense

A pre-Romanesque church in the parish of Mixós, one of the few surviving early medieval remains in the Monterrei valley; it belongs to a concello of eleven parishes covering almost 119 square kilometres. Declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico in 1931 and today a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), it appears to have arisen in the shadow of an early monastery founded by Saint Martin of Dumio in the 6th century, although the present-day church, from the 9th century, reuses earlier materials and later came under the Benedictine monastery of Celanova. It is crossed by the Camino de Santiago, along the Vía de la Plata. The chancel, built in ashlar, retains three apses with horseshoe-arch windows, and the altar of the central nave rests on a Roman altar stone bearing an inscription dedicated to a pre-Christian goddess.

Photo: José Antonio Gil Martínez from Vigo, Spain (CC BY 2.0)

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