Biba Sånta Mårian Kåmålen Patron Saint of Guam Sånta Mårian Kåmålen, also known as Our Lady of Camarin, is the patron saint of Guam. The 300-year-old Sånta Mårian Kåmålen statue is a revered icon, and although its origins are unknown, they are explained through oral tradition. Every year on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated, and Guam Catholics turn out by the thousands in Hagåtña to honor Sånta Mårian Kåmålen in a procession around the island’s capital. The statue of Sånta Mårian Kåmålen is 28 3/4 inches tall and weighs 48 1/2 pounds. It is made of wood, except for the ivory face and folded hands. She is painted with a regal pink and blue gown and sits high in the Dulce Nombre de Maria CathedralBasilica in Hagåtña in a niche in the sanctuary wall behind the altar. Sånta Mårian Kåmålen’s origins are shrouded in legend and she was the subject of front-page headlines when she was stolen from her home in the cathedral on three separate occasions in the last few decades. She is one of the most important icons in Guam’s history, religious or otherwise. A longtime effort to place a replica of the statue in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C. was realized in 2006.
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