Cuernavaca Cathedral

The Cuernavaca Cathedral is the Roman Catholic church of the Diocese of Cuernavaca, located in the city of Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. The church and its surrounding monastery is one of the early 16th century monasteries in the vicinity of the Popocatepetl volcano inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, built initially for evangelization efforts of indigenous people after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. By the 18th century, the church of the monastery began to function as the parish church of the city and in the late 19th century, it was elevated to the rank of a cathedral. Unlike many cathedrals in Mexico, this one does not face the city's main square, but rather is located just to the south, in its own walled compound, which it shares with a number of other structures. Unlike the other monastery structures from its time, the importance of this church provoked a number of renovation projects, the last of which occurred in 1957. This one took out the remaining older decorations of the interior and replaced them with simple modern ones. This renovation work also uncovered a 17th-century mural that covers 400 square metres (4,300 sq ft) of the interior walls and narrates the story of Philip of Jesus and twenty three other missionaries who were crucified in Japan.