According to unwavering, long-standing and constant tradition — oral and written, Indian and Spanish — on the Theotokos appeared to Nican Mopohua, a 55 year old Aztec catechumen, at Tepeyac.  Her request was that a shrine be built on the hill where she appeared.  And, Nican Mopohua (known in Spanish as Juan Diego) was to ask Bishop Zumárraga of nearby México City to build it.  With unwavering faith, Nican Mopohua persisted but was rebuffed twice.

On 12 December 1531, her fourth appearance, the Theotokos gave Juan Diego a sign to present to the bishop, which was a large bundle of roses of a kind normally found in Castile, Spain, that he rolled up in his tilma — a coarse-woven cloak.   As he unfolded his cloak the roses fell out, and he was startled to see the bishop and his attendants kneeling before him: the life size figure of the Virgin Mother, just as he had described her, was glowing on his tilma.

The coarsely woven fabric which bears the picture is as thin and open as low-quality burlap. It is made of vegetable fiber, probably maguey.  It consists of two strips, about seventy inches long by eighteen wide, held together by weak stitching.  The seam is visible up the middle of the figure, turning aside from the face.

Painters have not understood the laying on of the colors.  They have deposed that the "canvas" was not only unfit but unprepared; and they have marveled at apparent oil, water, distemper, etc. coloring in the same figure.  They are left in equal admiration by the flower-like tints and the abundant gold.  They and other artists find the proportions perfect for a maiden of fifteen.

The figure and the attitude are of one advancing.  There is flight and rest in the eager supporting angel.  The chief colors are deep gold in the rays and stars, blue green in the mantle, and rose in the flowered tunic.  Sworn evidence was given at various commissions of inquiry corroborating the traditional account of the miraculous origin and influence of the picture.  Some wills connected with Juan Diego and his contemporaries were accepted as documentary evidence.  Vouchers were given for the existence of Bishop Zumárraga's letter to his Franciscan brethren in Spain concerning the apparitions.

All written narrations about the apparitions of the Lady of Guadalupe are inspired by Nican Mopohua, or Huei Tlamahuitzoltica, as written in the Aztec language of Nahuatl, by the Indian scholar Antonio Valeriano around the middle of the 16th century.  Unfortunately the original of his work has not been found.  A copy was first published in Nahuatl by Luis Lasso de la Vega in 1649.

The shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in México City is visited by over 10 million pilgrims each year, making it the largest shrine in the Christian world.

Patroness of the Americas and of the Inclusive Orthodox Church