Arrecife celebrates this Thursday the festivity of Bishop San Ginés and at 11 in the morning, the church showed its best to receive the parishioners, who filled the three naves of the temple to participate in the Eucharist. The mass was presided over by Monsignor Cristóbal Déniz Hernández, auxiliary bishop of the Canary Islands, assisted by the parish priest of San Ginés, Juan Carlos Medina, and eight fellow priests.
The songs of the celebration were in charge of the parish choir, directed by the Lanzarote seminarian Alejandro Carmona and with the special collaboration of Professor Josefina González on the piano. The first rows of the church were occupied by the civil and military authorities of the island and the Eucharist ended with the hymn to San Ginés.
Then the procession began, headed by the music band "La Unión Musical de Lanzarote", directed by Professor Pepe Artiles. It was followed by the image of San Ginés, the clergy, authorities and parishioners touring the main streets of the island's capital. Upon his return to the church, San Ginés was dismissed with the ringing of the bells and the applause of the public.
San Ginés and its links with Arrecife
The image of San Ginés arrived in Arrecife and was installed in the old hermitage, today the parish of San Ginés, in 1798, after being donated by Ginés de Castro. However, devotion to the saint was already evident in the capital before the arrival of the image.
San Ginés de Clermont was a saint much venerated in France, which also took root in Arrecife due to the traffic of ships and people in the port of the capital. According to the parish archives, the image was preserved as it had come from Havana, without varnish or clothing. In addition, according to the book of Historical Artistic Assets of the church of San Ginés de Clermont de Arrecife, it is known that the image is French, with a marked influence of the Andalusian school, although its origin is American.
