Igreja de Carmo of Faro
Main Church
Igreja de Carmo is located at the Largo do Carmo in Faro. It is also known as Capela Dos Ossos. Igreja de Carmo offers an insight into how Portuguese had decorated their churches. Much of the gold came from Brazil in order to finance this church. This church has well balance decorations and it is very eye catching. As is the case, many churches in Portugal and Spain had one of the religious figures shown with the sword in his hand.
The most interesting part of this church is through a side door into a small garden. In the past, this garden was used as a burial ground. There are grave numbers on the wall which match with the records once remains were removed from the grounds.
Capela Dos Ossos (Chapel of the Bones)
A small entry door of the Capela Dos Ossos (Chapel of the Bones) brings visitors face to face to an unusual sight. The small chapel has bones of monks that were exhumed from Faro’s graves. At first I was little uneasy but then I started to feel comfortable inside this strangely decorated building. An old church had existed here since 1719 but current church dates back to 1816. The bones in this ossuary are the remains of 1,245 monks whose bones were displaced when the ossuary was built.
One of the reasons why bones were used in this chapel is that to show that life is temporary in this world and these bones are evidence of that. In the past, many countries would dig up the remains and then display them (normally after 8-10 years of burial). The floor of the chapel has few graves or grave stones to make the floor of the chapel.
