The Catholic Church is rich in astonishments.

And mysteries.

There are at least 221,700 Catholic churches around the world (about 950 just in Rome) in 3,500 dioceses. If you throw in missions, there are over a million parishes. Do you know that there are about 1,850 minor basilicas around the world (by one count, in addition to four “major” ones)?

Few are more fascinating than the Church and Convent of Santo Domingo del Cuzco in the Pope’s home turf of Peru.

This edifice was built on the foundations of the famous “Inti cancha” in 1534, an Inca Temple of the Sun that was one of the most sacred and respected buildings of the Inca Empire.

The church was built over the same Inca Temple, as if to demonstrate the destruction and annulment of the ancient pagan cult. Some time later the temple, known as the Place of Gold, was looted, almost completely stripped of the precious metals that decorated it.

Is the church a secret gateway—literally—to the ancient past?

This is asked because beneath the it are the most important artifacts of the Incan Empire, off-limits to the vast majority of visitors, in fact almost secret.

Mummified Incan emperors were even beneath it. It was the most sacred place in the empire.

And when the Indians got wind of Spanish explorers, they took the most important artifacts into a tunnel beneath the temple. “This tunnel runs for one mile,” notes explorer Timothy Alberino (in a Shawn Ryan podcast), to other secret tunnels and repositories. There’s a whole entire megalithic complex.

The Cathedral Basilica of Cusco is located on the north side of the Main Square (Plaza de Armas). The Church and Convent of Santo Domingo (which is built on the foundations of the Inca Temple of the Sun, Coricancha) is located a few blocks away, generally described as being at the intersection of El Sol Avenue and Santo Domingo Street.

This was the epicenter of the entire Incan Empire, laden with gold.

The Spaniards never learned about the tunnels, the “Chinkana,” and galleries.

Life-sized figurines in gold.

Alberino and his team Anlem were able to find it.

There are even pre-Incan artifacts.

The church is versene by the Dominican Order–this incredible gateway for prehistory.

The exploration team met with the prior, the main priest, who received the leader. When asked if the rumors of a secret city were true, he thought about it a moment, looked at Anslem, and said, “Yes, the legend is true”–and then, to leader’s shock, asked if he wanted to see it.

They then proceeded into the church, pushed an altar out of the way, and there was a trapdoor under the altar.

 

Anslem opened the trapdoor with his companions and descended down a set of stairs to a colonial crypt. There they noticed an opening that was partially covered with bricks. When he asked the priest what it was, the prior said, “That’s Chinkana”–the lost city no one had publicly discovered and perhaps the greatest discovery since Machu Picchu.

Their flashlights revealed masonry as exquisite as what was above.

The tunnel was trapezoidal and seemed to go on forever. Overwhelmed with excitement, Anslem said he would go get his exploration team, remove the rest of the bricks over the over the opening, and film there.

“No no no,” answer red the priest, turning on a dime. “I should not have brought you here. You are not su opposed to see this. Get out.”

They were thrown out of the church. “Now Anslem knows the rumors are true, that the tunnels lead to the most important treasures of the Incan Empire.

Ultimately–in Alberino’s telling “miraculously”–they were able to get permission to excavate. When they arrived to do that, Anslem went into the cathedral and saw that the floor has been retiled. It appeared the gallery had been filled in, perhaps with debris from a quake. The crypt was now inaccesible. The team was barred from the church despite a visit there by Peru’s king and queen.

It made international news. Alberino believes it’s “pre-Flood.”

the Church and Convent of Santo Domingo in Cuzco is not part of the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin (Cuzco Cathedral). They are separate religious sites, each with its own historical and architectural significance.

Here’s the distinction:

• Cathedral Basilica (Cuzco Cathedral):

  • Located on the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco.

  • Built over the palace of the Inca Viracocha.

  • Serves as the main church of the Archdiocese of Cuzco.

  • It’s the principal place of worship in the city and is considered the most important colonial structure in Cuzco.

• Church and Convent of Santo Domingo (built over Qoricancha):

  • Located a short walk southeast of the cathedral, on Avenida El Sol.

  • Constructed by the Dominicans in the 16th century over the ruins of Qoricancha, the Inca Temple of the Sun, which was the most sacred temple in the Inca Empire.

  • Famous for its Inca stonework, especially the finely cut and earthquake-resistant masonry.

Summary:

They are distinct entities:

• The Cathedral = the main colonial Catholic church.

• Santo Domingo = a Dominican convent and church built atop the most sacred Inca temple.

They are often both included in tours of religious and historical sites in Cuzco, but they are not part of the same building or ecclesiastical complex.

Later, they tracked it with GPR and verified the Chinkana. They ended up assisted by a second priest, Father Gamara, who was much friendlier. Gamara told Anslem that the Dominican Order knew of the Chinkana, ‘Labyrinth” or “the Place Where One Gets Lost,” and it was a secret kept by the priors of the church. Some believed the cavern is cursed. He showed Anslem a crown cast in pure gold that was now on a statue Mary that they called “The Crown of the Virgin and the Child.”

It is said there is a great treasure down there. This was attested by a young man in the early 1900s who with a friend had somehow somewhere found their way down there but true to legend, got lost. One died, the other was rescued when priests heard a knocking on the church’s floor. The surviving young man had in his hand a ear of corn made with solid gold. This was recast for the Virgin’s crow. (This second young man, ravaged by the experience and said to have gone mad, soon died also.)

“The tunnel is there,” says Alberino.

Alberino says there is a good chance they’ll be able to break into the tunnels soon. “This could be one of the biggest discoveries in Peru since Machu Picchu,” says Alberino. “The secret was handed down from prior to prior.”

“The question,” says Alberino, “is: What’s down there? What’s sequestered beneath the walls?”

Will it tell them who the builders were, those who preceded the ancient Inca?

“There’s something below. The tunnel is there.”