Santa Luzia (Angra do Heroísmo)
Encyclopedia
Santa Luzia is a parish in the municipality of Angra do Heroísmo
Angra do Heroísmo
Angra do Heroísmo , locally referred to as Angra, is a municipality and city on the island of Terceira, within the Portuguese autonomous region of the Azores. The municipal area has a population of 35,581 and an area of . Along with Praia da Vitória to the north, it is one of two municipal...

 on the island of Terceira
Terceira Island
Referred to as the “Ilha Lilás” , Terceira is an island in the Azores archipelago, in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the larger islands of the archipelago, with a population of 56,000 inhabitants in an area of approximately 396.75 km²...

, in the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...

. The population in 2001 was 3,001; its density was 2381.75/km²; and the area is 1.26 km². It is the most populated parish but the smallest in terms of land area, in Angra do Heroísmo.

History

Of the five civil parishes that constitute the urban area of Angra do Heroísmo, Santa Luzia is the most recent, founded in the first years of the Iberian Union
Iberian Union
The Iberian union was a political unit that governed all of the Iberian Peninsula south of the Pyrenees from 1580–1640, through a dynastic union between the monarchies of Portugal and Spain after the War of the Portuguese Succession...

 (in 18 August 1595). It was Bishop Manuel de Gouveia (then bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

 of Angra
Roman Catholic Diocese of Angra
The Roman Catholic diocese of Angra is in the Azores, Portugal. The episcopal see of the Azores, created in 1534 by Pope Paul III, has a bishop who is a suffragan of the patriarch of Lisbon, Cardinal José da Cruz Policarpo, of the archdiocese of Lisbon. It was vacant from 1637 to 1671...

) who proposed the creation of the ecclesiastical parish from a portion of
Sé (Angra do Heroísmo)
Sé is a parish in the municipality of Angra do Heroísmo on the island of Terceira in the Azores. The population in 2001 was 1200, its population density was 727.27/km², and the land area is 1.65 km². It is one of the most populated and the smallest, in terms of land area, of the parishes in Angra...

, that included: the Rua de Paulus Gomes the two bands until the home of George de Lemos de Betancor, down to the fountain and forward to the house of the sheriff, from there to the Castle and from there to the Serra cut by the ravine and mills with all the residents that exist within those limits. He justified it owing to the large faith community, the need to control transit on the island's port and the necessity to have access to health care services (at the time administered by the church).

At the time of its creation the parish of Santa Luzia had only about 300 homes, with four per capita, the populaiton only consisted of between 1200-1500 souls. There already existed a hermitage to the invocation of Santa Luzia
Saint Lucy
Saint Lucy , also known as Saint Lucia, was a wealthy young Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint by Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Orthodox Christians. Her feast day in the West is 13 December; with a name derived from lux, lucis "light", she is the patron saint of those who are...

, simplifying the de-annexation of the parish; it was constructed originally by a pious couple at the limits of their property, João vaz Merens and Catarina Lourenço Fagundes, although their selection of Saint Lucia is unclear.

In a documented dated in 1551, Joana Fernandes ou Rodrigues, a widow, donated lands in order to raise a church to Santa Luzia, reformulate or expand the existing hermitage (ostensibly for the founders and not for a future church) at the end of the 16th century.

External links

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