Sanctuary
The Sanctuary is a Chapel Reliquary (Shrine) with an elliptical structure in the interior, clearly Baroque with Rococo decoration, which was built to bring together in a single space all the relics that were scattered around the monastery. The date of its construction is uncertain, but it was certainly during the 18th century. Of its structure, we highlight the windows, the yellow, red, and green glass chandelier (18th century), which complements the natural light and accentuates the brightness of the composition, the pavement with high "illusionist" potentialities (by creating optical illusion) and the main altarpiece.
This Sanctuary contains relics from various eras, including the figures most dear to the Christian ideology: popes, bishops, apostles, martyrs, and various saints.
From the many relics that can be found here, we highlight those of the Martyrs of Morocco (who arrived at the Monastery in 1220) and of Saint Theotonius (the first Prior of the Monastery and the first Portuguese Saint) which are inside small reliquary chests decorated with gilded woodcarvings and placed, sensibly, in the middle of the chapel, on the left and right side, respectively.
All the pieces in this Sanctuary are reliquaries, including 12 pyramids with 4 sides, representing the 12 months of the year and the 4 weeks of each month. In these pyramids the relics were placed considering the month and week of death of the saint whose relics they contain.
This space is probably one of the most striking and most religiously symbolic in the Monastery of Santa Cruz, even if all the spaces in this monastery are charged with strong religious symbolism.