High Tech Scanning Reveals Wonders Of Ancient Church

Moorish tyranny swept over Spain after anti-Christian enemies within opened the gates of Visigothic cities to the invaders. Yet the Christian refugees who fled to the mountains of northern Spain remained true to their faith. As the armies of Pelayo and the first resistance heroes struck back, so too were wonderful churches erected in the free north of Spain.

One such is St Christine of Lena (Spanish: Santa Cristina de Lena). This is a Roman Catholic Asturian pre-Romanesque church located in the Lena municipality, about 25 km south of Oviedo, Spain, on an old Roman road that joined the lands of the plateau with Asturias.

One of the most particular elements of Santa Cristina de Lena is the existence of the presbytery elevated above floor level in the last section of the central nave, separated from the area intended for the congregation by three arches on marble columns. This separation, which appears in other Asturian churches, is not repeated in any other with a similar structure. Both the lattices over the arches and the wall enclosing the central arch were re-used from Visigothic origins in the 7th century.

This stunning video creates the church was it was well over 1,100 years ago….

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