Carmine Church, Catholic church in Ouro Preto, Brazil

The Carmine Church is a house of worship in Ouro Preto featuring a white facade with two bell towers and detailed stonework throughout its front entrance. The building displays religious carvings and decorative elements that showcase the skill of colonial craftspeople.

The Carmelite Third Order of Rio de Janeiro, settled in Vila Rica, founded a brotherhood in 1751 and commissioned Manuel Francisco Lisboa to design the church. José Pereira dos Santos began construction in 1756, but disputes with the Brotherhood of Saint Quiteria, which had donated the land, repeatedly halted work. João Alves Viana took over in 1767, raising the chancel and its stonework by 1769; the nave was finished in 1779 and the portal stonework in 1780.

The brotherhood that built the church was founded in 1751 by Carmelite tertiaries from Rio de Janeiro who had settled in Vila Rica and previously met in the chapel of Saint Quiteria. The altars of Saint John and Our Lady of Sorrows, carved by Aleijadinho with his assistants between 1807 and 1809, carry urns whose reliefs show the prophet Jeremiah in prison and the patience of Job, each framed by inscriptions alluding to the theme. The nave altars hold mostly roca images, and tile panels on the lower walls of the chancel depict scenes from Carmelite iconography.

The church stands on Rua Santa Quitéria in the Carmo hill area of Ouro Preto, its curved facade and soapstone frontispiece visible from the sloping street. The adjoining 1753 and 1755 houses hold the Oratory Museum, entered separately from the church. The cemetery behind, relandscaped by José Zanine in 1965, is enclosed by iron railings.

The two-storey house beside the church, built in 1753 for Carmelite novices and the brotherhood's collection, later housed the sacristans until 1942; it and a 1755 ground-floor house now hold the Oratory Museum. The churchyard began in 1824 and got iron railings and new planting by José Zanine in 1965.