santuario, diocesano, Santuario Diocesano Santissimo Crocifisso

In the first half of the 1600s, the city of Cosenza began its solemn annual celebration of the Santissimo Crocifisso, a feast still held every 3 May. When the Reformed Friars took up residence in the adjoining convent in 1628, they placed an artistic image of Christ on the Cross before the faithful, and instituted the festival on the day the Church marked the Finding of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. From the start, the beautiful simulacrum was considered miraculous. It is said to have saved the city and its people during the bombing of 3 September 1943, when the church and convent were destroyed; the crucifix, miraculously unharmed by the flames, was rescued by a friar. The sanctuary also recalls healings: a blind girl in 1920, a paralysed woman in 1959, and a young man in a coma in 2007. The Capuchin Friars have guarded this sanctuary since 1915, continuing a tradition of protection invoked by local farmers for good harvests.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.