[Shrine of Virgen de La Barca] [Parish church of Santa Maria] [Monastery of Moraime] [Church of San Xiao de Moraime] [Monastery of Santa Maria de Ozon] [Church of San Martiño de Ozon] [Church of Santa Maria de Morquintian] [Church of San Cristovo de Nemiña] [Church of Santa Leocadia de Frixe] [Other Churches of interest]

PARISH CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA

Sheltered by Monte Corpiño and situated on some rocks, at the extreme north of the village of Muxia, is the parish church of Santa Maria of Muxia. Few details are known about the origin of this beautiful church. It's known that in 1203 it was donated by Pope Inocencio III, with all its belongings, to the Cistercian monastery of Carracedo (O Bierzo).

This church, like many other Galician ones, belong to a transition Romanesque style formed by a single nave, with a wooden ceiling and divided into three parts by two lancet arches which lean against columns adjoined to the side walls.

The apse is rectangular. It can be reached by going through a triumphal lancet arch, and resting, as the other three which lean on the vault, on semicolumns finished off with capitals decorated with different motifs.

The main door of the church, which is on the old path that leads to the Shrine, also has a lancet arch, with an archivolt decorated with a torus and resting on two marble capitals, which some experts consider Roman. The tympanum is plain, resting on a sculptured support, one of which resembles the figure of a monk. It's possible that the stone structure which is now inside the church, as one enters on the right, could once have occupied that tympanum.

Both on the south as on the front parts, there are buttresses which reinforce the walls. On the south side, between two buttresses, there is a rectangular door. Descend a few stairs and adjacent to the wall is the sarcophagus of the priest Don Jose Fondevila Martinez, who died in 1874, benefactor of the shrine of La Barca.

On this same part of the church, where the niches were built, stands the chapel of the Encarnation, knocked down not that long ago. This square chapel, with a semicircular arch door, was a XVI century construction, and was funded by Alonso Garcia, an inhabitant of Muxia.

Adjoining the North wall, which can be reached from the inside of the church through an ogival door, is the interesting Gothic chapel of the Rosary (Capilla del Rosario), built at the end of the XIV century. It is a rectangular construction, covered by a rib vault in which its diagonal arches lean on supports at each corner, finished off with beautiful capitals.