The Basílica de Santa Teresa, four blocks south of Plaza Bolívar, is the most ornate of the surviving nineteenth-century churches in central Caracas. Begun in 1876 and dedicated in 1881, it was conceived as a twin temple — one façade for the Carmelite Saint Teresa of Ávila, the other for Saint Anne — and the layout reflects that, with two parallel naves under a single roof.
The basilica is best known for housing the Nazareno de San Pablo, a much-venerated wooden statue of Christ carrying the cross. On the Wednesday of Holy Week each year tens of thousands of caraqueños — many dressed in purple — process through the city behind the figure, in one of the largest religious gatherings in Venezuela.