CONVENTO DA PENHA: a manifestação do sagrado delineando paisagem religiosas e culturais no Espirito Santo 2011/2012

Abstract

This study is about the manifestation of the sacred in the site of the Convent of Our Lady of Penha and in the course of men’s pilgrimage to the convent. It highlights the factors that determine religious belief, the reasons why thousands of people move from their homes to express their faith and to seek the sacred, and why several devotees do penance to ask or to thank the Virgin for a grace received. The study seeks to understand how the manifestation of the sacred occurs and its possible spatial implications inside and outside the Convent. Is builds a theoretical debate mainly influenced by the ideas of Rosendahl, Eliade, Correa, Tuan, Foucault, Bourdieu, among others. The theoretical-methodological options adopted point to a field research base on a case study. Participant observation, field diary, photographic records, interviews and questionnaires constitute the instruments for data collection. Results indicate that the manifestation of the sacred in the Convent of Our Lady of Penha and in the course of men’s pilgrimage to the convent was consolidated due to certain regimes of truth concerning the power of the Virgin. The effects of the truth generated have fed people’s faith and devotion. The need for the sacred have long been establishing sacred places in the Convent, places for hierophany where several symbols and rituals were/have been used and performed, thus altering the natural setting, shaping it, building up a religious landscape, another culture and a site of faith and devotion. Having said that, the study of this phenomenon opens up an avenue for a debate on the creation of myth and religious practices, on their historical/cultural features, on the regime of truth under which they were established, on the spatial transformations they develop and on the role of religiosity in shaping the identity of the “capixabas”.