Location
Palermo
Start Date
26-6-2025 4:45 PM
End Date
26-6-2025 5:30 PM
Description
The revival of pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela was driven by a complex set of factors that converged and solidified in the second half of the twentieth century. Chief among them was the role of the Catholic Church and the regular celebration of Holy Years, proclaimed whenever July 25th—the feast of the Apostle James—falls on a Sunday. Each occasion, supported by modern and effective means of communication, has served to rekindle and promote the pilgrimage to Compostela. A pivotal moment in this revival was the declaration of Pope John Paul II during the Holy Year of 1982, in which he proclaimed that the Christian roots of Europe were shaped along the Camino de Santiago. From that point on, the pilgrimage was increasingly perceived as a religious experience and a foundational element of European identity. During the 1980s, the connection between Europe and the Camino de Santiago became a widely accepted axiom.
In 1985, marking Spain’s accession to the European Union, the Spanish government launched a series of international exhibitions on Spanish history and culture, including one explicitly titled Santiago de Compostela: 1000 ans de Pèlerinage Européen. Two years later, the Council of Europe reinforced this association through the Declaration of Saint-Jacques (1987), which laid the foundation for the first European Cultural Itinerary, explicitly dedicated to the Camino de Santiago. The major exhibition held in Santiago de Compostela in 1993, Camino de Santiago, Camino de Europa, further emphasised this conceptual framework. The 1993 Holy Year witnessed a dramatic surge in pilgrims—from 10,000 to 100,000—which has since grown to over 600,000 annually, with pilgrims arriving from all over the globe. What was once a primarily Christian, Western, and European pilgrimage has evolved into a global phenomenon, recognised by UNESCO in 1993 as a World Heritage Site.
The impact of this exponential growth has been felt across numerous domains: tourism, economics, culture, religion, science, and civil society. It has also acquired significant political and social dimensions. Academic research has accompanied and supported this development through specialised study centres such as Ad Limina and Compostella, expert committees, and university initiatives, including establishing the Institutional Chair of the Camino de Santiago and Pilgrimages at the University of Santiago de Compostela. The methodologies, criteria, and practices employed in reviving and consolidating the ancient Compostela routes and the system of hospitality infrastructures that accommodate thousands of pilgrims have often served as models and operational templates. These frameworks have inspired the revitalisation of historical routes worldwide and the creation of new cultural itineraries.
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DOI
https://doi.org/10.21427/hkx5-e337
Included in
Keynote 2: The Rebirth of the Santiago Way as a Model and Parameter for the Creation of Cultural Itineraries
Palermo
The revival of pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela was driven by a complex set of factors that converged and solidified in the second half of the twentieth century. Chief among them was the role of the Catholic Church and the regular celebration of Holy Years, proclaimed whenever July 25th—the feast of the Apostle James—falls on a Sunday. Each occasion, supported by modern and effective means of communication, has served to rekindle and promote the pilgrimage to Compostela. A pivotal moment in this revival was the declaration of Pope John Paul II during the Holy Year of 1982, in which he proclaimed that the Christian roots of Europe were shaped along the Camino de Santiago. From that point on, the pilgrimage was increasingly perceived as a religious experience and a foundational element of European identity. During the 1980s, the connection between Europe and the Camino de Santiago became a widely accepted axiom.
In 1985, marking Spain’s accession to the European Union, the Spanish government launched a series of international exhibitions on Spanish history and culture, including one explicitly titled Santiago de Compostela: 1000 ans de Pèlerinage Européen. Two years later, the Council of Europe reinforced this association through the Declaration of Saint-Jacques (1987), which laid the foundation for the first European Cultural Itinerary, explicitly dedicated to the Camino de Santiago. The major exhibition held in Santiago de Compostela in 1993, Camino de Santiago, Camino de Europa, further emphasised this conceptual framework. The 1993 Holy Year witnessed a dramatic surge in pilgrims—from 10,000 to 100,000—which has since grown to over 600,000 annually, with pilgrims arriving from all over the globe. What was once a primarily Christian, Western, and European pilgrimage has evolved into a global phenomenon, recognised by UNESCO in 1993 as a World Heritage Site.
The impact of this exponential growth has been felt across numerous domains: tourism, economics, culture, religion, science, and civil society. It has also acquired significant political and social dimensions. Academic research has accompanied and supported this development through specialised study centres such as Ad Limina and Compostella, expert committees, and university initiatives, including establishing the Institutional Chair of the Camino de Santiago and Pilgrimages at the University of Santiago de Compostela. The methodologies, criteria, and practices employed in reviving and consolidating the ancient Compostela routes and the system of hospitality infrastructures that accommodate thousands of pilgrims have often served as models and operational templates. These frameworks have inspired the revitalisation of historical routes worldwide and the creation of new cultural itineraries.