"Granada is one of the 17 cities that have received the qualification of 'Teresianas' for having the Convent of San José de las Carmelitas Descalzas.
The conventual Church is located in the Realejo neighborhood, in the Plaza de San Juan de la Cruz, in front of Capitanía, (Old convent of San Francisco “Casa Grande” ) and very close to the church of San Matías .
The convent of the Discalced Carmelites was founded by Saint John of the Cross together with the nuns sent by Saint Teresa of Jesus , from the Jaén town of Beas de Segura. It was the penultimate congregation that was founded during the life of Saint Teresa. The founders arrived in Granada in 1582.
San Juan de la Cruz, under the indications and directives of Santa Teresa de Jesús, acquired in 1584 the old house of the Dukes of Sessa, descendants of the Great Captain. The congregation had to rebuild the building and the new temple was inaugurated in 1629.
The church has two Mannerist doorways made of gray stone from Sierra Elvira. The doorways are very similar in composition, characterized by their lintel doors, with semicircular arches, framed between Doric pilasters on bases.
Above each door there is a curved pediment divided with a niche, and another semicircular pediment on which a cross stands. On both sides of the cross there are small shields of the Carmelites.
On the main doorway there is a 17th century niche with a sculptural group of the Sagrada Familia, made by Alonso de Mena. There is also a large cartouche with an inscription that remembers the life and death in this house of the Great Captain .
The temple is finished with a belfry with a double bell tower . The interior consists of a single nave with barrel vault roofs, a pattern repeated in the arms of the transept and the apse.
The church of the Discalced Carmelites is the canonical seat of the brotherhood of Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno and María Santísima de la Merced."
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