Iglesia del Carmen, Catholic parish church in Santa Tecla, El Salvador

Iglesia del Carmen is a neo-gothic parish church in Santa Tecla, El Salvador, completed in 1914. Its central nave was raised to a greater height in the Gothic manner under Father José María López-Peña, and the interior holds sculptures inherited from the colonial period, kept in San Salvador's Iglesia San Francisco until that church was demolished in the 1873 earthquake. The church occupies a plot a little larger than 5,000 square metres north of the main plaza, on 3rd Street-West.

The current church was begun on 27 November 1878, when Bishop Luis Cárcamo y Rodríguez laid the first stone on land Colonel León de Jesús Castillo had bought along 3rd Street-West from 1873. After Castillo died in 1891, Fathers Juan José Bernal, José E. Argueta and above all José María López-Peña carried the work on, raising the central nave in Gothic style and completing the church in 1914. The Jesuits took over its administration in January 1916.

The parish takes its name from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, whose image Colonel León Castillo received from his friend Luis Batres in Guatemala; it was blessed and placed in the church on 11 April 1860. Since January 1916 the Jesuits have administered the temple and adjoining residence, and priests Segundo Montes, Ignacio Martín-Baró and Juan Ramón Moreno were linked to the parish.

The building requires substantial repairs following earthquake damage and is currently undergoing governmental heritage preservation review. Visitors should check ahead about the current condition since restoration work may affect access or the state of the building.

The vow story belongs to the earlier chapel, not the present church: in 1840 León Castillo, wounded in combat in Guatemala, crawled to the Iglesia del Carmen del Cerrito and promised the Lady of El Carmen to build her a temple if she spared him. He was cared for there by the priest Antonio Larrazábal for almost two years.