Forty years ago in Orísoain, a little village in the area of Valdorba, while they were cleaning up and restoring the parish church, the neighbours found a crypt that was only alive in the memory of the old people; a secret kept for centuries inside the church.
Few parish churches in the Road to Santiago have crypts. The builder of the church of Orísoain used the drop in the land height in order to reflect a mystical idea: the constant symbolic union between heaven and earth, in this case, the union of the mountain and the cave, the visible and the invisible.
The architecture of the church reflects this union between heaven and earth too: inside the nave, near the entrance to the crypt, there are four prismatic columns forming a square that represent the earth. The capitals open up to heaven. Three of the capitals have scrolls and vegetable motifs, and represent the celestial hierarchy, and the fourth has symmetric sagittarius-lions pointing at the bird perched in their back. In the chequered pillars one can still see the base of the arches that used to hold a dome. In the sides of the pillars we find the door that gave access to the cell.
The sculptures emphasise the idea of duality between the opposite and complementary elements that form the unit. For instance, there is a transmutation circle formed by two serpents that bite each other's tail. There area characters that look up and others that look down, and a couple with bread and wine. The capitals in the churches of San Martín in Orísoain, Asunción in Olleta and San Pedro in Etxano have the same type of sculptures. It is difficult to describe, but they represent the link between two worlds: heaven and earth. In one of the carvings, there is an animal with a trunk, and faces and shapes of angelical beings. One of the sculptures that best describe this idea is the one carved in the right capital of the arch of triumph.
A trap in front of the altar takes to the stairs of the crypt. In order to get in, we have to bow and almost get down on our knees as we pass through two small arches. Under the apse, there are three pilasters attached to the North wall and three more attached to the South wall. They are one meter high and serve as base for the ribs that hold the semidome. In the centre there is a flaring loophole oriented to the east. It is the only one that was originally in the apse, and it lets some light in for a few minutes at dawn. Light comes through the loophole only seven weeks before the autumnal equinox and seven weeks after spring.
The small size of the crypt contrasts with the abundant sculptures. The sculptures illustrate the enigmas of Genesis and the path to light, and are intended for the meditation and contemplation of the faithful and the pilgrims. Some of the images, in opposite columns, have opposite and complementary meanings, in tune with the symbolic dualism. Capitals are symmetrical and have carvings with simple and old archetypes such as shells, birds, snakes and palm leaves, as well as the bow, the knot, the triangle, the fruit, the seed and the light.
From the outside, one can see that the orientation of this little jewel is deliberate. It is set in the spot where flat and hilly Valdorba meet. It is in the centre of the semi circles formed by the ranges of Alaiz, Izco and the hilly part of Guerinda and the lower hills that border on Artajona, with its vines, olive trees and cereal lands. This is a beautiful landscape, with scattered chapels and rural churches that can be seen from higher points. It is the intersection of the main inland paths used by the pilgrims in the Middle Ages.