Room I

Inside the fascinating life of San Antonio Maria Claret (1807-1870), dazzle his intense devotion to María Santísima, specially under the name of Inmaculado Corazón. This dedication starts in the Archicofradía established in Nuestra Señora de las Victorias in Paris in 1836 and it spreads quickly around France.

Father Claret finds in this dedication his spiritual light (Virgin Mary is my mum, my professor and my all, after Jesus Christ) and in the Archocifradia establishment a pastoral instrument to use wherever he does missions. He is the same passionate missionary that, in his visit accompanied by Queen Elisabeth II (as her confessor) he asks to be admitted as a brother in the Primitive Brotherhood of Nazarens of Sevile (El Silencio), becoming the first holy brother of our Brotherhoods.

Founding the Claretian Congregation (… missionaries been and called Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary) instructs them to establish the Brotherhood where they preach their mission. So much so, in 1860 Pope Pio XI grants them the privilege of raising in the places they predict just with the ordinary licence and the priest consent. Thereafter, the Archicofradias were annexed to the Paris church and the Basilica of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Rome.

In this way, arriving in Seville and after several years of pilgrimage of the Claretian Missionaries, the Cardinal Almaraz y Santos gives them Santa Maria de Jesús Chapel, in Puerta de jerez, and a newly built house (current headquarters of the Consejo General de Hermandades y Cofradías) where they establish the Archicofradía in 1915 and they celebrate the first Novena, subsequently Novenas to the Immaculate Heart of Mary have been celebrating every single year (including the Civil War years and the Covid-19 pandemic years) except the years of the transfer to Heliópolis.

We only have some documentary testimonies (specific ones as the Chorus Register or general ones as the Missionaries testimonies) about this Immaculate Heart of Mary Brotherhood because it did not acquire legal personality and it was just a pastoral instrument. And, aboveall, we have the first Emblem, certainly acquired in 1929 in Catalan or Valencian embroidery workshops for its premiere in the closing procession of the “Congresillo del Inmaculado Corazón de María” celebrated inside the Marian Congress happening in the city.

In 1942 Claretian Missionaries establish a new community in Heliopolis. This new community wants to establish the Archicofradia, in this time according to canonical requirements to attain legal personality. The first time they request that is in 1944, the second time in 1947 and the last time in 1948. Finally, September 28th of 1949 the Statues of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Brotherhood of Seville were approved by the Archbishop, Cardenal Segura.