St Catalina Monastery (Arequipa)

We spent a fascinating couple of hours exploring the St Catalina Monastery in Araquipa. It is absolutely enormous (a veritable city within a city, covering a full city block) and is a photographic delight with its multitude of colours, ornate doorways and plethora of secret nooks and crannies.

The monastery has a very interesting and slightly sinister history (which of course, adds immeasurably to its allure).

It was founded in 1580 and a wealthy widow decided to retire from the world and become the first resident of the monastery.  Over time, the monastery grew and many women of wealth and social standing entered the monastery as nuns. Many of them brought with them their servants and household goods, and lived within the walls of the monastery as they had lived before.

While outwardly renouncing the world and embracing a life of poverty, they enjoyed their luxurious English carpets, silk curtains, porcelain plates, damask tablecloths, silver cutlery, and lace sheets. They employed musicians to come and play for their parties.

By the mid 1800's, word that the monastery functioned more as a social club than a religious convent reached Pope Pius IX who sent Sister Josefa Cadena, a strict Dominican nun, to investigate.

She arrived at the Monasterio Santa Catalina in 1871 and some serious shit hit the fan!!

She sent the servants packing and instigated strict reforms, including a stringent rule of no contact with the outside world, mortification of the body through wearing barbed wire underwear (we saw samples and they looked nasty, definitely not the lacey and frilly kind!), self flagellation with leather whips and strict fasting.

In 1970, when the civic authorities insisted the monastery install electricity and running water (none until then!), the now poor community of nuns elected to open the greater portion of the monastery to the public in order to pay for the work.

The few remaining nuns retreated to a corner of their community and the remainder became one of Arequipa’s prime tourist attractions.

Below are some photos from within the monastery. It is now beautifully restored and a very beautiful place.

On the very rare occasions that a nun was allowed contact with the outside world, it could only be through this double wooden barred window. No doubt the Mother Superior also listened in over the nuns shoulder. Not exactly a recipe for intimate chats!