A fragment of the mask of the old Virgin of Sorrows, which disappeared in 1931, has returned to the brotherhood of Puerto de la Torre. The piece, preserved for decades by a family, was handed over on September 15 at the parish.
A fragment of the mask of the old Virgin of Sorrows, which disappeared on May 12, 1931, has returned to the Sacramental Brotherhood of the Most Holy Christ of Brotherhood and Charity, Our Lady of Sorrows and Saint John the Evangelist, in Puerto de la Torre. The handover took place this Tuesday, September 15, as reported by Diario Sur, at the parish of Our Lady of Sorrows, following the Eucharist celebrated in honour of the Marian titular feast.
Miguel Antonio Torres García, representing the Torres González-Oliveros family, placed the fragment in the hands of the elder brother, Antonio de la Rubia Nadales. From that moment on, the mask, arranged in a glass frame for protection and display, became part of the heritage of the Nazarene corporation.
The preserved fragment shows the mask almost complete. According to the testimony passed down by the family, after the events of 1931, this part of the face of the old Dolorosa was recovered by three teenagers: María Infante Otero, Josefa García Navarrete, and Antonia García Ramírez. Since then, the mask was under the custody of María Infante and later passed to her daughter, María Teresa Ramos Infante. In 2018, the latter handed it over to Miguel Antonio Torres García, remaining in the hands of the Torres González-Oliveros family, who are related by family ties to those young women who rescued it.
The devotional history of the original Dolorosa of Puerto de la Torre dates back much further. Apparently, the image was linked to the old hermitage of San Pablo, known as 'Las Ermitas', in the area of Mount Tortuga. There, it occupied the chapel of the main altar, and according to handwritten notes by the Málaga scholar Narciso Díaz de Escovar, its creation was attributed to the sculptor and hermit Lorenzo Marceli, known within that community as Brother Lorenzo of Saint Francis.
If true, this information is of particular interest, as Marceli is also the author of the old Christ of Zamarrilla, carved in 1757 and subsequently lost. Lorenzo of Saint Francis had professed as a hermit of the Order of Saint Paul in 1750 and died on March 9, 1778. His remains were buried in the chapel of Santa Justa and Rufina of the church of the Holy Martyrs Cyriacus and Paula.
The significance that the Virgin reached before ending up in Puerto de la Torre is also reflected in a document from 1833. Thus, the Diocese of Málaga granted indulgences to those who prayed a Salve before Our Lady of Sorrows at the hermitage of Las Ermitas. However, the fate of the Marian effigy changed with the destruction of the chapels of Las Ermitas in 1868. Since then, there are no verified data that allow for a precise reconstruction of its entire journey, although it is recorded that in 1887 it arrived in Puerto de la Torre from, according to the brotherhood, the hermitage of Zamarrilla, and from there, it began to receive worship in a chapel set up next to the school hall.
It remained there while the construction of the temple that today presides over the neighbourhood and is dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows progressed. But on May 12, 1931, that provisional chapel, like so many others in Málaga, was destroyed and the Virgin disappeared. For decades, the narrative remained associated with its definitive loss.
The brotherhood's own archive preserves a photograph used to announce the septenary of 1926. It is one of the graphic testimonies that allow us to know the appearance of that Dolorosa just five years before its disappearance. However, its memory never completely faded. In fact, in 2024, to mark the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the current corporation, a mosaic dedicated to the image was installed at the site where that provisional chapel once stood.
The parish that ultimately continued that devotion opened its doors to worship in 1942. On November 10 of that year, the church of Our Lady of Sorrows was consecrated, and its main altar was presided over by a new series Dolorosa from the workshops of Olot. Around her, a group of parishioners gathered who, under the impetus of the barefoot Carmelite Fray Gerardo de Jesús María, would eventually constitute the Brotherhood of the Most Holy Sacrament and Our Lady of Sorrows in May 1949.
The corporation thus recovered a devotion that already had a long history in Puerto de la Torre. On the Friday of Sorrows, the brotherhood will celebrate a Eucharist in honour of the Virgin of Sorrows at the parish.
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