About San Lorenzo Mission Chapel (Historic Church) · Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico
San Lorenzo Mission Chapel (Historic Church) is a historic Catholic mission chapel located on Indian Service Route 201 within Picuris Pueblo, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northern New Mexico. It serves as one of ten mission chapels of the San Antonio de Padua Catholic Church in neighboring Peñasco, sharing clergy and a website with the parish and the nearby St. Anthony of Padua parish in Dixon. The chapel — whose original mission dates back to 1620 and whose rebuilt 18th-century form was restored in the 1960s by the Picuris community — is part of the Picuris Pueblo, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and falls under the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
- Established
- 1620
- Patron
- St. Lawrence (San Lorenzo)
- Diocese
- Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santa Fe
Why belong here
For Catholics in the upper Peñasco Valley and around Picuris Pueblo, San Lorenzo Mission Chapel is a once-a-month Sunday Mass rotation stop — a chance to worship in a beautifully restored 18th-century adobe church set against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The chapel is the spiritual home for the Picuris Catholic community as well as for visitors, and the broader San Antonio de Padua / St. Anthony of Padua parishes share clergy, faith formation, and sacramental preparation across the ten mission chapels.
Mass times at San Lorenzo Mission Chapel (Historic Church)
Weekly Mass schedule
Confession times
- By appointment with the parish office; confessions are heard at San Antonio de Padua, Peñasco on Fridays 4:30–5:30 PM, at Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, Velarde on Saturdays 2:30–3:30 PM (or 3:30–4:30 PM during daylight savings time), and at St. Anthony of Padua, Dixon on Sundays after the 10:30 AM Mass.
About San Lorenzo Mission Chapel
San Lorenzo Mission Chapel (Historic Church) is a restored 18th-century adobe Catholic mission inside Picuris Pueblo in northern New Mexico. It is one of ten mission chapels that, together with San Antonio de Padua Church in Peñasco and St. Anthony of Padua Church in Dixon, make up a single parish cluster sharing clergy and a website at dixonpenascocc.org. The chapel belongs to the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Santa Fe and is maintained by the Picuris community as a living piece of tribal and Catholic heritage. Per GCatholic, it is filed as a 'Mission of: Iglesia San Antonio de Padua, Peñasco.'
History of the Mission
Spanish Franciscan missionaries first came to Picuris in 1598 with the Oñate expedition, but the pueblo did not receive its own mission until 1620–21, when Fray Martín de Arvide arrived. A church and convento were in use by 1629. The mission was destroyed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, briefly rebuilt, damaged again during the second Picuris uprising of 1696 (after which many Picuris fled east to El Cuartelejo in Kansas), and repeatedly damaged by Apache and then Comanche raids through the 1700s. The decisive blow came in 1769, when a Comanche party sacked the undefended mission outside the pueblo walls; Governor Pedro Fermín de Mendinueta then ordered the old church demolished and a new, defensible one built inside the pueblo. By 1776, when Father Visitor Domínguez arrived, the new single-nave adobe church — about 24 varas long by 7 wide, facing south — was still under construction, with a planned convento and cloister. The Picuris people maintained the church through the Mexican and U.S. periods; a tin roof added in the 20th century was later removed, and in the 1960s the mission was excavated and reconstructed by community volunteers who molded thousands of adobe bricks by hand to restore its 1778-era appearance. A 1986 nave-wall collapse led to another major restoration, completed in the years that followed.
- First Franciscan ministry: 1598 (Fray Francisco de Zamora, Oñate expedition)
- Designated mission: 1620–21 (Fray Martín de Arvide)
- First church/convento in use: 1629
- Pueblo Revolt destruction: 1680
- Second revolt; flight to El Cuartelejo: 1696
- Comanche sack; old church demolished: 1769
- New church under construction when Domínguez visited: 1776
- 1960s archaeological excavation and community adobe-brick restoration
- 1986 nave-wall collapse; subsequent major restoration
Architecture & Restoration
The visible mission is a small, thick-walled adobe church oriented to the south, with a choir loft and (originally) a transept, and a three-room convento behind it. The 1960s restoration returned the building to its roughly 1778 form by hand-molding adobe bricks and rejecting the more modern pitched tin roof that had been added earlier. The 1986 collapse of part of the nave wall — caused largely by cement stucco trapping moisture in the earthen blocks — led to a second round of structural work and replastering using traditional lime-based methods.
Patron Saint: St. Lawrence (San Lorenzo)
The mission is dedicated to San Lorenzo — St. Lawrence, the 3rd-century Roman deacon and martyr whose feast day is August 10. The pueblo's major community feast, the Feast of St. Lawrence on August 10, is celebrated with traditional Sunset Dances at Picuris, and the same patron is honored with Mass at the mission chapel when it falls on a scheduled Sunday. St. Lawrence's patronage of the pueblo and the mission is one of the oldest continuous Catholic traditions in the upper Peñasco Valley.
Sacraments
As a mission chapel of San Antonio de Padua, Picuris offers — through the shared parish office — preparation for First Holy Communion and Youth Confirmation, with registration typically opening in August. Couples should contact the parish office for marriage preparation; funerals, baptisms, and anointing of the sick are likewise coordinated through the parish office in Peñasco.
- First Holy Communion preparation — registration usually in August
- Youth Confirmation preparation — registration usually in August
- Baptism, Marriage, Anointing of the Sick — by arrangement with the parish office
Contact & Visiting
The San Lorenzo Mission Chapel sits inside Picuris Pueblo on Indian Service Route 201, Picuris Pueblo, NM 87553. The parish office (San Antonio de Padua) can be reached at (575) 587-2111; the emergency line is (575) 587-0399. The Picuris Pueblo visitor office is reached at 575-587-2519; the pueblo is generally open to visitors for a small fee, Monday–Friday 8:00 AM–5:00 PM. Visitors should respect pueblo rules about photography, access to ceremonial areas, and current closures. The clustered parishes share one website at dixonpenascocc.org.
Picuris Pueblo — Context for the Mission
Picuris Pueblo lies on the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, about 18 miles south of Taos and 60 miles north of Santa Fe. It is the smallest of New Mexico's 19 Pueblo tribes, with an elevation above 7,000 feet. The pueblo is famous for its mica-flecked pottery and for its colonial-era mission heritage — of which San Lorenzo is the centerpiece. The pueblo is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the mission church has been documented by the National Park Service's Historic American Buildings Survey.
Pastors & rectors through the years
- Fray Francisco de Zamora1598
Franciscan who accompanied Oñate's 1598 expedition; assigned generally to Taos and Picuris.
- Fray Martín de Arvide1620s
Arrived in 1620/21; by 1629 a church and convento were built and in use.
- Fray Andrés Claramonte1769
Barely escaped the 1769 Comanche sack of the mission, which he called 'a miracle.'
- Fray Francisco Atanasio Domínguez1776
Father Visitor who inspected and described the new mission under construction in 1776.