Temple of Solitude and the old Indian Hospital

The Temple of Solitude is in Baroque style and dates back to the 17th century. It has a single nave with a rectangular floor plan and an apse at the back. Its roof is made of wooden beams with a clay tile roof; the façade is austere and has a bell tower at its side. The enclosure houses a highly venerated image: the Lord of the Holy Burial, an ancient sculpture that represents Christ after the crucifixion.

This image is used every year during Holy Week, the rest of the time it is inside an urn, which, according to the parishioners, was broken with his feet, since it grew due to the miracles he performs for the population who devoutly ask him for it, mainly for health.

The so-called “Growing Christ” is life-size, weighs about 15 kilograms and because of its lightness it has been hung on the cross every year, but a priest of the church assures that the growth of this Christ is due to natural stretching and not to miracles.

Despite this clarification, the citizens of Tzintzuntzan refuse to believe it and that is why they venerate and care for it. Each month of the year, a different carrier is in charge of guarding the church.

To the east of the Temple of Solitude is the complex that makes up the Old Indian Hospital, which is walled in and has an entrance that leads to the large landscaped atrium and another that leads to a secondary street in the town. Today, only vestiges of the building remain of what was the hospital built by Vasco de Quiroga.

The space is more or less rectangular in shape, with a courtyard with an atrial cross in its centre surrounded by gardens, around which were located the rooms, which are one story, with adobe masonry walls and a roof made of wooden beams and tiled roofs; among the structures there is also a small stone bell tower and some contemporary annexes. To one side of the courtyard of the old hospital, but within the area, there is an old open chapel or Indian chapel isolated from the complex.