Iglesia de San Gregorio - Seville

The Church of San Gregorio Magno, also known as the Church of San Gregorio de los Ingleses , was built by the Society of Jesus in 1595 and consecrated on November 11, 1596.

This church was part of the College of the English founded in Seville by the Jesuit Robert Parsons. This foundation was confirmed by HH Clement VIII through the bull "Inter multiplices animi nostri curas" (11-5-1594) and its mission was to be a seminary for the training of English clergy who later left to perform their duties clandestinely to practice in England.

The architectural sobriety of the church's interior corresponds to classical Renaissance taste, with three naves, the middle one higher and larger than the side aisles, separated by semicircular arcades supported by elegant white marble columns of Tuscan order. Some beautiful Mannerist style doors with carvings and inlays and the allegorical figures of Faith and Hope have been preserved from this period.

After the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain by order of His Majesty Charles III in 1767, the Colegio de San Gregorio and the church passed to the Royal Academy of Medicine and Surgery of Seville. It was the headquarters of this medical institution (founded in 1693) from 1771 until October 2, 1867, when the concordat was signed between the said Royal Academy and the Confraternity of the Holy Burial, which transferred the church to the Confraternity of the Holy Burial for the veneration of her images.

In 1940, the Order of Mercy was restored in Seville and San Gregorio became a monastery of the Mercedarian Fathers.

High Altar of the Church of San Gregorio de los InglesesThe Neoclassical style high altar, conceived as a huge triumphal arch, houses the statue of the Reclining Christ , a work attributed to Juan de Mesa (around 1620), which is located inside the old processional urn , also neoclassical, designed in 1829 by the municipal architect Melchor Cano (1794-1842), under the political auspices of the assistant Arjona and the artistic direction of Juan de Astorga y Moyano.

On the side of the Gospel nave is the neo-Baroque altarpiece by María Santísima de Villaviciosa, a Baroque candelabra statue of powerful dramatic power, the work of Antonio Cardoso de Quirós (1691). This statue is joined by that of John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene, made by the sculptor Juan de Astorga (1829), who was a member of the board of directors and artistic director of the Confraternity.

Next to the previous altarpiece is a neoclassical altarpiece depicting San Ramón Nonato . In an interior niche of this altarpiece there is an interesting statue of the Reclining Christ, attributed to Pedro Millán (1504), which arrived in San Gregorio in 1956 from the Real Parroquia de Santa Mª Magdalena de Sevilla, transferred to the Hermandad del Santo Entierro by mediation of the former Spiritual Director of this corporation, D. José Sebastián y Bandarán.

Willem Vandenameele