Iglesia de María Auxiliadora, Catholic parish church in San Salvador, El Salvador

Iglesia de María Auxiliadora is a historicist church in San Salvador built in a Romanesque basilica style, with a nave 69 m long and 25 m wide laid out in a cross. Its 60 m dome carries a 5.90 m copper image of Mary, Help of Christians, and the bell tower rises 90 m on a base 10 m deep and 10 m wide. Stained glass from Italy and Spain shows scenes of salvation history, the life of the Virgin and John Bosco, and mosaics of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel by Austrian artist Juan Fuchs fill the transept.

Construction began on 1 November 1950, the day the Assumption of Mary was proclaimed dogma, promoted by the Salesian priest Ambrosio Rossi, who replaced an earlier plan for a chapel to Saint Michael the Archangel with a larger temple to Mary Help of Christians. The priest Francisco Manzoni was among those in charge, and builder José María Durán drew the plans with help from his son-in-law, engineer José Napoleón Duarte. The church became a parish seat in 1953 and was consecrated in 1969.

Locals call it "Parroquia Don Rúa" after the Don Rúa International Salesian Institute that stood here, and the Salesians still run the Domingo Savio school, a bookshop and a parish clinic beside the church. The Mamá Margarita dining hall serves meals to homeless and elderly people.

The church stands at the corner of the Don Rúa salesian complex, whose grounds cover 4 hectares; the 90-metre bell tower, for years the city's tallest structure, makes it visible from several blocks away. The tower holds four clocks made by the Dutch firm Peter-Frissen, and the carillon of 40 bells, restored in 2005 with a computer-programmed system, still marks the hours.

The tower's 40 bells first rang on 6 January 1964; the electrical system driving them failed in the 1986 earthquake and was only restored in 2005, when computer-programmed melodies replaced the old mechanism. Five of the bells swing, while the other 35 form a carillon.