This week, we read on the social media platforms of the Colectividad Vasca de Chile, a group of Basques there, that three dantzaris from the dance troup Euskadiko Lagunak had offered an aurresku at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, Chile.
It was during the episcopal ordination of Navarrese Álvaro Chordi Miranda, who was named the bishop of Regiana and the auxiliary bishop of Santiago by Pope Francis on July 2, 2022.
The petition to have an aurresku be a part of this event was made by the bishop himself, who turned to the Basque group to see if it was possible to have an aurresku performed at the end of the service. Of course it was. Actually, it was done twice: once at the Metropolitan Cathedral itself, and again at the social gathering held afterwards.
Álvaro Chordi Miranda was born in Pamplona in 1967 and was ordained a priest in Vitoria on June 19, 1999 by Bishop Miguel Asurmendi Aramendía, also from Pamplona.
Since then, for fifteen years, his work was linked to the Bishopric of Vitoria, where he was the priest at St. Anthony’s in Vitoria (1999–2003). Between 2003 and 2008, he was the diocesan delegate for Youth Ministry in Vitoria, collaborating with the parishes of Jesus Christ Resurrected and St. Mary’s. Between 2008 and 2012, he was the director of Diocesan Work for Professional Training.
He arrived in Chile on August 5, 2015, where he was the general councilor for Adsis, for Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, in charge of the Christian education of the students at lay universities within the archbishopric of Santiago, and councilor for Pastoral Education at the Vicariate of Education (2015–2018); parish priest at St. Cajetan’s, parish priest at St. Saturninus’s, member of the Presbyterian Council of the Archbishopric of Santiago (since 2020). He has collaborated with the National Youth Ministry Commission of the Episcopal Conference of Chile and is the Vice President of the FRE Foundation, since 2020.
Also at the ordination was the bishop of Vitoria, Juan Carlos Elizalde Espinal, who is also Navarrese, from Mezkiritz, in the Pyrenees.
We spoke to one of the members of the Basque group in Chile, Paula Solas Nuñez, to please share some photos and video of this aurresku with us, and she most kindly did.
We thought it was beautiful, and significant, that this Navarrese man, a priest in Vitoria from 1999 to 2015, and now in Chile, felt the need to finish of such an important act as his episcopal ordination with an aurresku.
The three Euskadiko Lagunak dancers who offered the aurresku were Maitane Uribe (group teacher), Texia Rogers, and Belén González.
At the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago, Chile
At the celebration of the episcopal ordination.
Header photo: an aurresku at the episcopal ordination of Álvaro Chordi Miranda as the bishop of Regiana and auxiliar bishop of Santiago, Chile (photo courtesy: Colectividad Vasca de Chile)
Last Updated on Dec 3, 2023 by About Basque Country