SW News: The international pilgrim center of Santiago de Compostela in Spain has witnessed a record number of pilgrims since January. As of July 25, the feast day of St James the Great whose relics are enshrined there, the cathedral was visited by more than 200,000 people.

According to the dean of the cathedral Fr Jose Fernandez, this January 1,600 pilgrims visited the shrine and the number has kept on increasing steadily. In April, the number of visitors touched 48,000. It is for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic that Europe’s oldest pilgrim center is witnessing such an outflow of pilgrims.

Even though there are pilgrims from every part of the world, most of the pilgrims are Spanish. “There are many Germans, many Americans; there are even Koreans. In the year 2019, which was the one with the most pilgrims until this one—this one surpasses 2019—citizens from all countries recognized by the UN had come, all except 12 or 13 countries,” the Dean stated.

The pilgrim center lies in the northwest part of Spain in the region of Galicia. The pilgrimage to the historic site began in the 9th century. In 814, the tomb with the relics of St James was discovered and king Alfonso II of Asturias and Galicia ordered a chapel on the site. Tradition says that the Apostle had evangelized Spain which was then under Roman rule. That was how his followers secretly ferried his relics from the Holy Land to Compostela. Following this, the first church was built in 829 AD and the construction of a pre-Romanesque church in 899 marked the beginning of the pilgrimage.

It took 100 years for the construction of Cathedral Santiago which began in 1075. The Cathedral was built mainly using granite inspired by the French church of Saint Serin. The site was even included in UNESCO's World Heritage Sites in 1993.
There awaits a surprise for the visiting pilgrims in the form of a special passport. Those who travel on foot through one of the several traditional paths to Santiago carry with them pilgrim passports, which are stamped all along the way at churches, inns and so on. Upon reaching the final destination, pilgrims receive the Compostela certificate from the office of the cathedral.