Santo Toribio de Liebana

Santo Toribio is one of five places granted a perpetual jubilee by the Vatican, alongside Rome, Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostela and Caravaca de la Cruz, holding a jubilee year whenever the feast of Saint Toribio on 16 April falls on a Sunday. Its relic is the Lignum Crucis, a piece of wood set in a silver-gilt cross, said to be the left arm of the cross and the largest surviving fragment, brought here in the eighth century. The monastery is also where Beatus of Liebana wrote his Commentary on the Apocalypse around 776, a text copied and illuminated for centuries across Spain, producing the Beatus manuscripts. The building is largely thirteenth century in a transitional Romanesque and Gothic style, in a wooded valley below the Picos.

History

The monastery's beginnings are obscure: its foundation is credited to Turibius, a 6th-century bishop of Palencia who retired here with companions under the Benedictine rule, and it was first dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. Probably in the 8th century the body of another Turibius, bishop of Astorga, was brought here with relics including the Lignum Crucis, held to be the largest piece of the True Cross, and here the monk Beatus of Liébana wrote and illustrated his Commentary on the Apocalypse; the first record of the name comes in 1125, the community ended with the sale of church lands in 1837, and Franciscan friars took over in 1961 (Wikipedia, Santo Toribio de Liébana).

The main sights

• The Lignum Crucis - a relic claimed as the largest true cross fragment.
• The jubilee door - a holy door opened in jubilee years.
• The Beatus connection - the monastery where the Apocalypse commentary was written.
• The Liebana valley - a wooded setting below the Picos de Europa.

When to go

April to June and September to November; jubilee years, when the feast falls on a Sunday, bring far larger numbers. The monastery closes for a midday break and for services.

Good to know

The relic is displayed in a reliquary and the visit is brief. The building is modest by monastery standards. Access is by a short road from Potes with limited parking, and jubilee years are crowded.

Nearby

Potes lies three kilometres east; Fuente De and the Picos are up the valley.

Key facts