title: Santiago

text: The city lies in the center of the "Santiago Basin", a large bowl-shaped valley consisting of broad and fertile lands surrounded by mountains. The city has a varying elevation, gradually increasing from in the western areas to more than in the eastern areas. Santiago's international airport, in the west, lies at an altitude of . Plaza Baquedano, near the center, lies at . Estadio San Carlos de Apoquindo, at the eastern edge of the city, has an elevation of .


title: Santiago

text: The Santiago Basin is part of the Intermediate Depression and is remarkably flat, interrupted only by a few "island hills;" among them are Cerro Renca, Cerro Blanco, and Cerro Santa Lucía. The basin is approximately in a north–south direction and from east to west. The Mapocho River flows through the city.


title: Santiago

text: The city is flanked by the main chain of the Andes to the east and the Chilean Coastal Range to the west. On the north, it is bordered by the "Cordón de Chacabuco", a mountain range of the Andes. At the southern border lies the "Angostura de Paine", an elongated spur of the Andes that almost reaches the coast.


title: Santiago

text: The mountain range immediately bordering the city on the east is known as the Sierra de Ramón, which was formed due to tectonic activity of the San Ramón Fault. This range reaches 3296 meters at Cerro de Ramón. The Sierra de Ramón represents the "Precordillera" of the Andes. further east is the even larger Cordillera of the Andes, which has mountains and volcanoes that exceed and on which some glaciers are present. The tallest is the Tupungato mountain at . Other mountains include Tupungatito, San José, and Maipo. Cerro El Plomo is the highest mountain visible from Santiago's urban area.


title: Santiago

text: During recent decades, urban growth has outgrown the boundaries of the city, expanding to the east up the slopes of the Andean Precordillera. In areas such as La Dehesa, Lo Curro, and El Arrayan, urban development is present at over 1,000 meters of altitude.


title: Santiago

text: The natural vegetation of Santiago is made up of a thorny woodland of "Vachellia caven" (also known as "Acacia caven" and espinillo) and "Prosopis chilensis" in the west and an association of "Vachellia caven" and Baccharis paniculata in the east around the Andean foothills.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago has a cool semi-arid climate ("BSk" according to the Köppen climate classification), with Mediterranean ("Csb") patterns: warm dry summers (October to March) with temperatures reaching up to on the hottest days; winters (April to September) are cool and humid, with cool to cold mornings; typical daily maximum temperatures of , and low temperatures near . In climate station of Quinta Normal (near downtown) the precipitation average is 341.8 mm, and in climate station of Tobalaba (in higher grounds near the Andes mountains) the precipitation average is 367.8 mm.


title: Santiago

text: In the airport area of Pudahuel, mean rainfall is per year, about 80% of which occurs during the winter months (May to September), varying between of rainfall during these months. That amount contrasts with a very sunny season during the summer months between December and March, when rainfall does not exceed on average, caused by an anticyclonic dominance continued for about seven or eight months. There is significant variation within the city, with rainfall at the lower-elevation Pudahuel site near the airport being about 20 percent lower than at the older Quinta Normal site near the city center.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago's rainfall is highly variable and heavily influenced by the El Niño Southern Oscillation cycle, with rainy years coinciding with El Niño events and dry years with La Niña events. The wettest year since records began in 1866 was 1900 with – part of a "pluvial" from 1898 to 1905 that saw an average of over eight years incorporating the second wettest year in 1899 with – and the driest 1924 with . Typically there are lengthy dry spells even in the rainiest of winters, intercepted with similarly lengthy periods of heavy rainfall. For instance, in 1987, the fourth wettest year on record with , there was only in the 36 days between 3 June and 8 July, followed by in the 38 days between 9 July and 15 August.


title: Santiago

text: Precipitation is usually only rain, as snowfall only occurs in the Andes and Precordillera, being rare in eastern districts, and extremely rare in most of the city. In winter, the snow line is about , and it ranges from .


title: Santiago

text: The city is affected only occasionally by snowfall. The period between 2000 and 2017 has been registered 9 snowfalls and only two have been measured in the central sector (2007 and 2017). The amount of snow registered in Santiago on 15 July 2017 ranged between 3.0 cm in Quinta Normal and 10.0 cm in La Reina (Tobalaba).


title: Santiago

text: Temperatures vary throughout the year from an average of in January to in June and July. In the summer days are very warm to hot, often reaching over and a record high close to , while nights are very pleasant and cool, at . During autumn and winter the temperature drops, and is slightly lower than . The temperature may even drop to , especially during the morning. The historic low of was in July 1976.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago's location within a watershed is one of the most important factors determining the climate of the city. The coastal mountain range serves as a screen that stops the spread of maritime influence, contributing to the increase in annual and daily thermal oscillation (the difference between the maximum and minimum daily temperatures can reach 14 °C) and maintaining low relative humidity, close to an annual average of 70%. It also prevents the entry of air masses, with the exception of some coastal low clouds that penetrate to the basin through the river valleys.


title: Santiago

text: Prevailing winds are from the southwest, with an average of , especially during the summer; the winter is less windy.


title: Santiago

text: Due to Santiago's location on the Pacific Ring of Fire at the boundary of the Nazca and South American plates, it experiences a significant amount of tectonic activity. The first earthquake on record to strike Santiago occurred in 1575, 34 years after the official founding of Santiago. The 1647 Santiago earthquake devastated the city, and inspired Heinrich von Kleist's novel, "The Earthquake In Chile".


title: Santiago

text: The 1960 Valdivia earthquake and the 1985 Algarrobo earthquake both caused damage in Santiago, and led to the development of strict building codes with a view to minimizing future earthquake damage. In 2010 Chile was struck by the sixth largest earthquake ever recorded, reaching 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale. 525 people died, of whom 13 were in Santiago, and the damage was estimated at 15–30 billion US dollars. 370,000 homes were damaged, but the building codes implemented after the earlier earthquakes meant that despite the size of the earthquake, damage was far less than that caused a few weeks earlier by the 2010 Haiti earthquake, in which at least 100,000 people died. Large megathrust earthquakes aside, smaller local faults in an around Santiago pose significant earthquake risks. Two faults in particular, San Ramón and El Arrayan, in the east and north of Santiago respectively have been singled out as being particularly dangerous.


title: Santiago

text: The easternmost neighborhoods of the city lies in a zone prone to landslides. Landslides of the debris flow type in particular are a significant hazard.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago's air is the most polluted air in Chile. In the 1990s air pollution fell by about one-third, but there has been little progress since 2000. A study by a Chilean university found in 2010 that pollution in Santiago had doubled since 2002. Particulate matter air pollution is a serious public health concern in Santiago, with atmospheric concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 regularly exceeding standards established by the US Environmental Protection Agency and World Health Organization.


title: Santiago

text: A final major source of Santiago air pollution, one that continues year-round, is the smelter of the El Teniente copper mine. The government does not usually report it as being a local pollution source, as it is just outside the reporting area of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, being from downtown.


title: Santiago

text: During winter months, thermal inversion (a meteorological phenomenon whereby a stable layer of warm air holds down colder air close to the ground) causes high levels of smog and air pollution to be trapped and concentrated within the Central Valley.


title: Santiago

text: As of March 2007, only 61% of the wastewater in Santiago was treated, which increased up to 71% by the end of the same year. However, in March 2012, the Mapocho Wastewater Treatment Plant began operations, increasing the wastewater treatment capacity of the city to 100%, making Santiago the first capital city in Latin America to treat all of its municipal sewage.


title: Santiago

text: According to data collected in the 2002 census by the National Institute of Statistics, the Santiago metropolitan area population reached 5,428,590 inhabitants, equivalent to 35.9% of the national total and 89.6% of total regional inhabitants. This figure reflects broad growth in the population of the city during the 20th century: it had 383,587 inhabitants in 1907; 1,010,102 in 1940; 2,009,118 in 1960; 3,899,619 in 1982; and 4,729,118 in 1992. (percentage of total population, 2007)


title: Santiago

text: The growth of Santiago has undergone several changes over the course of its history. In its early years, the city had a rate of growth 2.9% annually until the 17th century, then down to less than 2% per year until the early 20th century figures. During the 20th century, Santiago experienced a demographic explosion as it absorbed migration from mining camps in northern Chile during the economic crisis of the 1930s. The population surged again via migration from rural sectors between 1940 and 1960. This migration was coupled with high fertility rates, and annual growth reached 4.9% between 1952 and 1960. Growth has declined, reaching 1.4% in the early 2000s. The size of the city expanded constantly; The 20,000 hectares Santiago covered in 1960 doubled by 1980, reaching 64,140 hectares in 2002. The population density in Santiago is 8,464 inhabitants/km.


title: Santiago

text: The population of Santiago has seen a steady increase in recent years. In 1990 the total population under 20 years was 38.0% and 8.9% were over 60. Estimates in 2007 show that 32.9% of men and 30.7% of women were less than 20 years old, while 10.2% of men and 13.4% of women were over 60 years. For the year 2020, it is estimated that the figures will be 26.7% and 16.8%.


title: Santiago

text: 4,313,719 people in Chile say they were born in one of the communes of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, which, according to the 2002 census, amounts to 28.5% of the national total. 67.6% of the inhabitants of Santiago claim to have been born in one of the communes of the metropolitan area. In communes such as Santiago Centro and Independencia, according to 2017 census, 1/3 of residents is a Latin American immigrant (28% and 31% of the population of these communes, respectively). Other communes of Greater Santiago with high numbers of immigrants are Estación Central (17%) and Recoleta (16%).


title: Santiago

text: Santiago is the industrial and financial center of Chile, and generates 45% of the country's GDP. Some international institutions, such as ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), have their offices in Santiago. The strong economy and low government debt is attracting migrants from Europe and the United States.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago's steady economic growth over the past few decades has transformed it into a modern metropolis. The city is now home to a growing theater and restaurant scene, extensive suburban development, dozens of shopping centers, and a rising skyline, including the second tallest building in Latin America, the Gran Torre Santiago. It includes several major universities, and has developed a modern transportation infrastructure, including a free flow toll-based, partly underground urban freeway system and the Metro de Santiago, South America's most extensive subway system.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago is an economically divided city (Gini coefficient of 0.47). The western half ("zona poniente") of the city is, on average, much poorer than the eastern communes, where the high-standard public and private facilities are concentrated.


title: Santiago

text: The Costanera Center, a mega project in Santiago's Financial District, includes a mall, a tower, two office towers of each, and a hotel tall. In January 2009 the retailer in charge, Cencosud, said in a statement that the construction of the mega-mall would gradually be reduced until financial uncertainty is cleared. In January 2010, Cencosud announced the restart of the project, and this was taken generally as a symbol of the country's success over the global financial crisis. Close to Costanera Center another skyscraper is already in use, Titanium La Portada, tall. Although these are the two biggest projects, there are many other office buildings under construction in Santiago, as well as hundreds of high rise residential buildings. In February 2011, Gran Torre Santiago, part of the Costanera Center project, located in the called Sanhattan district, reached the 300-meter mark, officially becoming the tallest structure in Latin America.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago is Chile's retail capital. Falabella, Paris, Johnson, Ripley, La Polar, and several other department stores dot the mall landscape of Chile. The east side neighborhoods like Vitacura, La Dehesa, and Las Condes are home to Santiago's Alonso de Cordova street, and malls like Parque Arauco, Alto Las Condes, Mall Plaza (a chain of malls present in Chile and other Latin American countries) and Costanera Center are known for their luxurious shopping. Alonso de Cordova, Santiago's equivalent to Rodeo Drive or Rua Oscar Freire in São Paulo, has exclusive stores like Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Emporio Armani, Salvatore Ferragamo, Ermenegildo Zegna, Swarovski, MaxMara, Longchamp, and others. Alonso de Cordova also houses some of Santiago's most famous restaurants, art galleries, wine showrooms and furniture stores. The Costanera Center has stores like Armani Exchange, Banana Republic, Façonnable, Hugo Boss, Swarovski, and Zara. There are plans for a Saks Fifth Avenue in Santiago. Several mercados in the city such as the Mercado Central de Santiago sell local goods. Barrio Bellavista and Barrio Lastarria have some of the most exclusive night clubs, chic cafés and restaurants.


title: Santiago

text: Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport (IATA: SCL) is Santiago's national and international airport and the principal hub of LATAM Airlines, Sky Airline, Aerocardal and JetSmart. The airport is located in the western commune of Pudahuel. The largest airport in Chile, it is ranked sixth in passenger traffic among Latin American airports, with 14,168,282 passengers served in 2012 – a 17% increase over 2011. It is located 15 km from the city center.


title: Santiago

text: Peldehue airport in Colina began operations on December 13, 2021. It will be able to service up to 25 flights per hour.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago is also served by Eulogio Sánchez Airport (ICAO: SCTB), a small, privately owned general aviation airport in the commune of La Reina.


title: Santiago

text: Trains operated by Chile's national railway company, Empresa de los Ferrocarriles del Estado (EFE), connect Santiago to several cities in the south-central part of the country: Rancagua, San Fernando, Talca (connected to the coastal city of Constitución by a different train service), Linares and Chillán. All such trains arrive and depart from the Estación Central railway station (Central Station), which can be accessed by bus or subway. The proposed Santiago–Valparaíso railway line would connect Santiago with Valparaíso in 45 minutes, and expansions of the commuter rail network to Melipilla and Batuco are under discussion.


title: Santiago

text: Bus companies provide passenger transportation from Santiago to most areas of the country as well as to foreign destinations, while some also provide parcel shipping and delivery services.


title: Santiago

text: A network of free flow toll highways connects the various areas of the city. They include the Vespucio Norte and Vespucio Sur highways, which surround the city completing a nearly full circle; Autopista Central, the section of the Pan American highway crossing the city from north to south, divided in two highways apart; and the Costanera Norte, running next to the Mapocho River and connecting the international airport with the downtown and with the wealthier areas of the city to the east, where it divides into two highways.


title: Santiago

text: Other non-free flow toll roads connecting Santiago to other cities, include: Rutas del Pacífico (Ruta 68), the continuation of the "Alameda" Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins Avenue to the west, provides direct access to Valparaíso and Viña del Mar; Autopista del Sol (Ruta 78), connects Melipilla and the port of San Antonio with the capital; Autopista Ruta del Maipo (a.k.a. "Acceso Sur") is an alternative to the Pan American highway to access the various localities south of Santiago; Autopista Los Libertadores provides access to the main border crossing to Argentina, via Colina and Los Andes; and Autopista Nororiente, which provides access to the suburban development known as Chicureo, north of the capital.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago has 37% of Chile's vehicles, with a total of 991,838 vehicles, 979,346 of which are motorized. An extensive network of streets and avenues stretching across Santiago facilitate travel between the different communities that make up the metropolitan area.


title: Santiago

text: In the 1990s the government attempted to reorganize the public transport system. New routes were introduced in 1994 and the buses were painted yellow. The system, however, had serious issues with routes overlapping, high levels of air and noise pollution, and safety problems for both riders and drivers. To tackle these issues a new transport system, called Transantiago, was devised. The system was launched in earnest on 10 February 2007, combining core services across the city with the subway and with local feeder routes, under a unified system of payment through a contactless smartcard called "Tarjeta bip!" The change was not well received by users, who complained of lack of buses, too many bus-to-bus transfers, and diminished coverage. Some of these problems were resolved, but the system earned a bad reputation which it has not been able to shake off. , the fare evasion rate is stubbornly high.


title: Santiago

text: In recent years many cycle paths have been constructed, but so far the number is limited and with little connections between the routes. Most cyclists ride on the street, and the use of helmets and lights is not widespread, even though it is mandatory.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago Metro has six operating lines (1, 2, 3, 4, 4A, 5 and 6), extending over and connecting 118 stations. The system carries around 2,400,000 passengers per day. Two underground lines (Line 4 and 4A) and an extension of Line 2 were inaugurated in 2005 and 2006, while an extension of Line 5 was inaugurated in 2011. Line 6 was inaugurated in 2017, adding 10 stations to the network and approximately of track. Line 3 opened on January 22, 2019, with 18 new stations


title: Santiago

text: EFE provides suburban rail service under the brandname of Metrotren. There are 2 southbound routes. The most popular is the Metrotren Nos service, between the Central Station of Santiago and Nos station, in San Bernardo. This line, inaugurated in 2017, serves 8 million people per year, with 12 trains serving 10 stations with a frequency of 6 minutes during rush hours, and 12 during the rest of the time. The other route is the Metrotren Rancagua service, between the Central Station of Santiago and the Rancagua station, connecting Santiago with the regional capital of O'Higgins.


title: Santiago

text: Transantiago is the name for the city's public transport system. It works by combining local (feeder) bus lines and main bus lines, as well for the EFE commuter trains and the Metro network. It includes an integrated fare system, which allows passengers to make bus-to-bus, bus-to-metro or bus-to-train transfers for the price of one ticket, using a contactless smartcard (bip!). This system also offers reduced fares for the elderly, as well as high school and university students.


title: Santiago

text: Taxicabs are common in Santiago and are painted black with yellow roofs and have orange license plates. So-called "radiotaxis" may be called up by telephone and can be any make, model, or color but should always have the orange plates. "Colectivos" are shared taxicabs that carry passengers along a specific route for a fixed fee.


title: Santiago

text: The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Santiago - to and from work, for example - on a weekday is 84 min. 23% of public transit riders ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 15 min, while 21% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 7.4 km, while 15% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.


title: Santiago

text: As of 2006, Santiago was home to 992,000 vehicles, 979,000 of which were motorized. This made up 37.3% of Chile's total vehicle count. 805,000 cars passed through the city, which is 37.6% of the national total or one car for every seven people.


title: Santiago

text: The main road is the Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins, better known as Alameda Avenue, which runs northeast and southwest. From north to south, it is crossed by Autopista Central and the Independencia, Gran Avenida, Recoleta, Santa Rosa, Vicuña Mackenna and Tobalaba avenues. Other major roads include the Avenida Los Pajaritos to the west and Providencia Avenue and Apoquindo Avenue to the east. Finally, the Américo Vespucio Avenue acts as a ring road.


title: Santiago

text: During the 2000s, several urban highways were built through Santiago in order to improve the situation for vehicles. The road General Velásquez and sections of the Pan-American Highway in Santiago were converted into the Autopista Central, while Américo Vespucio became variously the highways Vespucio Norte Express and Vespucio Sur, as well as Vespucio Oriente in the future. Following the edge of the Mapocho River, Costanera Norte was built to link the northeast of the capital to the airport and the downtown area. All these highways, totaling 210 km in length, have a free flow toll system.


title: Santiago

text: Greater Santiago lacks a metropolitan government for its administration, which is distributed between authorities, complicating the operation of the city as a single entity. The highest authorities in Santiago are considered to be the governor of the Santiago Metropolitan Region, who is popularly elected to the office, now held by Claudio Orrego, and the regional presidential delegate of Santiago Metropolitan Region, an official appointed by the president of Chile, post currently occupied by Constanza Martínez.


title: Santiago

text: The conurbation of Greater Santiago does not fit perfectly into any administrative division, as it extends into four different provinces and 35 communes plus 11 satellite communes which together make the Santiago Metropolitan Area. The majority of its (as of 2002) lie within Santiago Province, with some peripheral areas contained in the provinces of Cordillera, Maipo, and Talagante.


title: Santiago

text: Although there is no official consensus in this regard, the communes of the city are usually grouped into seven sectors: north, center, northeast, southeast, south, southeast and southwest.


title: Santiago

text: Only a few historical buildings from the Spanish colonial period remain in the city, because – like the rest of the country – Santiago is regularly hit by earthquakes. Extant buildings include the Casa Colorada (1769), the San Francisco Church (1586), and Posada del Corregidor (1750).


title: Santiago

text: The cathedral on the central square (Plaza de Armas) is a sight that ranks as high as the Palacio de La Moneda, the Presidential Palace. The original building was built between 1784 and 1805, and architect Joaquín Toesca was in charge of its construction. Other buildings surrounding the Plaza de Armas are the Central Post Office Building, which was finished in 1882, and the Palacio de la Real Audiencia de Santiago, built between 1804 and 1807. It houses the Chilean National History Museum, with 12,000 objects that can be exhibited. On the southeast corner of the square stands the green cast-iron Commercial Edwards building, which was built in 1893. East of that is the colonial building of the Casa Colorada (1769), which houses the Museum of Santiago. Close by is the Municipal Theatre of Santiago, which was built in 1857 by the French architect Brunet of Edward Baines. It was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1906. Not far from the theater is the Subercaseaux Mansion and the National Library, one of the largest libraries of South America.


title: Santiago

text: The Former National Congress Building, the Justice Palace, and the Royal Customs Palace ("Palacio de la Real Aduana de Santiago") are located close to each other. The latter houses the Museum of pre-Columbian art. A fire destroyed the building of the Congress in 1895, which was then rebuilt in a neoclassical style and reopened in 1901. The Congress was deposed under the military dictatorship (1973–89) of Augusto Pinochet, and after the dictatorship was newly constituted on 11 March 1990, in Valparaíso.


title: Santiago

text: The building of the Justice Palace (Palacio de Tribunales) is located on the south side of the Montt Square. It was designed by the architect Emilio Doyére and built between 1907 and 1926. The building is home to the Supreme Court of Chile. The panel of 21 judges is the highest judicial power in Chile. The building is also the headquarters of the Court of Appeals of Santiago.


title: Santiago

text: Bandera street leads toward the building of the Santiago Stock Exchange (the "Bolsa de Comercio"), completed in 1917, the Club de la Unión (opened in 1925), the Universidad de Chile (1872), and toward the oldest churchhouse in the city, the San Francisco Church (constructed between 1586 and 1628), with its Marian statue of the "Virgen del Socorro" ("Our Lady of Help"), which was brought to Chile by Pedro de Valdivia. North of the "Plaza de Armas" ("Square of Arms," where the colonial militia was mustered) are the Paseo Puente, the Santo Domingo Church (1771), and the Central Market (Mercado Central), an ornamental iron building. Also in downtown Santiago is the Torre Entel, a 127.4-meter-high television tower with observation deck completed in 1974; the tower serves as a communication center for the communications company, ENTEL Chile.


title: Santiago

text: The Costanera Center was completed in 2009, and includes housing, shopping, and entertainment venues. The project, with a total area of 600,000 square meters, includes the 300-meter high Gran Torre Santiago (South America's tallest building) and other commercial buildings. The four office towers are served by highway and subway connections.


title: Santiago

text: Within the metropolitan area of Santiago, there are 174 heritage sites in the custody of the National Monuments Council, among which are archeological, architectural and historical monuments, neighborhoods and typical areas. Of these, 93 are located within the commune of Santiago, considered the historic center of the city. Although no santiaguino monument has been declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco three have already been proposed by the Chilean government: the Incan sanctuary of El Plomo, the church and convent of San Francisco and the palace of La Moneda.


title: Santiago

text: In the center of Santiago are several buildings built during the Spanish domination and that mostly correspond to, as the Metropolitan Cathedral and the aforementioned church of San Francisco Catholic churches. Buildings of the period are those located on the sides of Plaza de Armas, as the seat of Real Audiencia, the Post Office or the Casa Colorada.


title: Santiago

text: During the nineteenth century and the advent of independence, new architectural works began to be erected in the capital of the young republic. The aristocracy built small palaces for residential use, mainly around the neighborhood Republica and preserved until today. To this other structures adopted artistic trends from Europe, as the Equestrian Club of Santiago, the head offices of the University of Chile and the Catholic University, Central Station and the Mapocho Station, Mercado Central, join the National Library, Museum of Fine Arts and the Barrio París-Londres, among others.


title: Santiago

text: Various green areas in the city contain within and around various sites of heritage character. Among the most important are the fortifications of Santa Lucia hill, the shrine of the Virgin Mary on the summit of San Cristobal hill, the lavish crypt of the General Cemetery, Parque Forestal, the O'Higgins Park and the Quinta Normal Park.


title: Santiago

text: In Santiago's major theater companies are located, hosting several national and international projects, with the highest expression during the International Theatre Festival known as Santiago a Mil, which takes place every January since 1994 and has gathered more than one million spectators. Also is the Planetarium at the University of Santiago de Chile.


title: Santiago

text: To carry out various cultural, artistic and musical events, there are several precincts within which highlight the Mapocho Cultural Center, 100 Matucana Cultural Center, the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center, Centro Cultural Palacio de La Moneda, the Movistar Arena and the Caupolican Theater. On the other hand, the opera and ballet performances are permanently accepted by the Municipal Theatre of Santiago, located in the heart of the city and which has a capacity of 1500 spectators.


title: Santiago

text: There are 18 cinemas in the capital with a total of 144 rooms and over 32,000 seats, the projection centers than 5 arthouse add.


title: Santiago

text: For children and teenagers, there are several entertainment venues, such as amusement park Fantasilandia, the National Zoo or the Buin Zoo on the outskirts of the city. The Bellavista, Brasil, Manuel Montt, Plaza Ñuñoa and Suecia account for most of the nightclubs, restaurants and bars in the city, the main evening entertainment centers in the capital. In order to promote the economic development of other regions, the law prohibits the construction of a casino in the metropolitan region, but nearby are the casino from the coastal city of Vina del Mar, 120 km from distance from Santiago, and Monticello Grand Casino in Mostazal, 56 kilometers south of Santiago, which opened in 2008.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago has a wealth of museums of different kinds, among which are three of 'National' class administered by the Directorate of Libraries, Archives and Museums (DIBAM): the National History Museum, National Museum of Fine Arts and the National Museum of Natural History.


title: Santiago

text: Most of the museums are located in the historic city center, occupying the old buildings of colonial origin, such as with the National History Museum, which is located in the Palacio de la Real Audiencia. La Casa Colorada houses the Museum of Santiago, while the Colonial Museum is housed in a wing of the Church of San Francisco and the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art occupies part of the old Palacio de la Aduana. The Museum of Fine Arts, though it is located in the city center, was built in the early twentieth century, especially for housing the museum and in the back of the building was laid in 1947, the Museum of Contemporary Art, under the Faculty of Arts of the University of Chile.


title: Santiago

text: The Quinta Normal Park also has several museums, among which are the already mentioned of Natural History, Artequin Museum, the Museum of Science and Technology and the Museo Ferroviario. In other parts of the city there are some museums such as the Aeronautical Museum in Cerrillos, Museum of Tajamares in Providence and the Museo Interactivo Mirador in La Granja. The latter opened in 2000 and designed mainly for children and youth has been visited by more than 2.8 million visitors, making it the busiest museum in the country.


title: Santiago

text: The most important public library is the National Library located in downtown Santiago. Its origins date back to 1813, when it was created by the nascent Republic and was moved to its current premises a century later, also home to the headquarters of the National Archives. In order to provide more closeness to the population, incorporating new technologies and complement the services provided by public libraries and the National Library was opened in 2005 the Library of Santiago at Barrio Matucana.


title: Santiago

text: There are a number of jazz establishments, some of them, including "El Perseguidor," "Thelonious," and "Le Fournil Jazz Club," are located in Bellavista, one of Santiago's "hippest" neighborhoods, though "Club de Jazz de Santiago," the oldest and most traditional one, is in Ñuñoa. Annual festivals featured in Santiago include Lollapalooza and the Maquinaria festival.


title: Santiago

text: The most widely circulated newspapers in Chile are published by "El Mercurio" and "Copesa" and have earned more than the 91% of revenues generated in printed advertizing in Chile.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago is home to the major Chilean television networks including the public broadcaster TVN and the privately held Canal 13, Chilevisión, La Red and Mega. In addition, the radio stations ADN Radio Chile, Radio Agricultura, Radio Concierto, Radio Cooperativa, Radio Pudahuel and Radio Rock & Pop are located in the city.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago is home to some of Chile's most successful football clubs. Colo-Colo, founded on 19 April 1925, has a long tradition, and has played continuously in the highest league since the establishment of the first Chilean league in 1933. The club's wins include 30 national titles, 10 Copa Chile successes, and champions of the Copa Libertadores tournament in 1991, the only Chilean team to have won this tournament. The club hosts its home games in the Estadio Monumental in the commune of Macul.


title: Santiago

text: Universidad de Chile has 18 national titles and 5 Copa Chile wins. In 2011 they were champions of Copa Sudamericana, the only Chilean team to have won this tournament. The club was founded on 24 May 1927, under the name Club Deportivo Universitario as a union of Club Náutico and Federación Universitaria. The founders were students of the University of Chile. In 1980, the organization separated from the University of Chile and the club is now completely independent. The team plays its home games in the Estadio Nacional de Chile in the commune of Ñuñoa.


title: Santiago

text: Club Deportivo Universidad Católica (UC) was founded on 21 April 1937. It consists of fourteen different departments. This team plays its home games in Estadio San Carlos de Apoquindo. Universidad Católica has 13 national titles, making it the third most successful football club in the country. It has played the Copa Libertadores more than 20 times, reaching the final in 1993, losing to São Paulo FC.


title: Santiago

text: Several other football clubs are based in Santiago, including Unión Española, Audax Italiano, Palestino, Santiago Morning, Magallanes and Barnechea. In addition to football, several sports are played in the city, tennis and basketball being the main ones. The Club Hípico de Santiago and the Hipódromo Chile are the two horseracing tracks in the city.


title: Santiago

text: Santiago hosted the final stages of the official 1959 Basketball World Cup, where Chile won the bronze medal.


title: Santiago

text: The city held a round of the all-electric FIA Formula E Championship on 3 February 2018, on a temporary street circuit incorporating the Plaza Baquedano and Parque Forestal. It was the first FIA sanctioned race in the country.


title: Santiago

text: There is an extensive network of bicycle trails in the city, especially in the Providencia commune. The longest section is the Americo Vespuccio road, which contains a very wide dirt path with many trees through the center of a street used by motorists on both sides. The next longest path is along the Mapocho River along Andrés Bello Avenue. Many people use folding bicycles to commute to work.


title: Santiago

text: There are ski resorts to the east of the city (Valle Nevado, La Parva, El Colorado) and wineries in the plains west of the city.


title: Santiago

text: As in most of Chile, the majority of the population of Santiago is Catholic. According to the National Census, carried out in 2002 by the National Statistics Bureau (INE), in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, 3,129,249 people 15 and older identified themselves as Catholics, equivalent to 68.7% of the total population, while 595,173 (13.1%) described themselves as Evangelical Protestants. Around 1.2% of the population declared themselves as being Jehovah's Witnesses, while 2.0% identified themselves as Latter-day Saints (Mormons), 0.3% as Jewish, 0.1% as Eastern Orthodox and 0.1% as Muslim. Approximately 10.4% of the population of the Metropolitan Region stated that they were atheist or agnostic, while 5.4% declared that they followed other religions.


title: Santiago

text: In 2010 construction was initiated on the Santiago Bahá'í Temple, serving as the Baháʼí House of Worship for South America, in the commune of Peñalolen. Construction at the site was completed and the temple was dedicated in October 2016.


title: Santiago

text: The largest university and one of the oldest in the Americas is Universidad de Chile. The roots of the university date back to the year 1622, as on 19 August the first university in Chile under the name of Santo Tomás de Aquino was founded. On 28 July 1738, it was named the Real Universidad de San Felipe in honor of King Philip V of Spain. In the vernacular, it is also known as Casa de Bello (Spanish: House of Bello – after their first Rector, Andrés Bello). On 17 April 1839, after Chile's independence from the Kingdom of Spain, it was renamed the Universidad de Chile, and reopened on 17 September 1843.


title: Santiago

text: The Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) was founded in June 1888 and was ranked as the best school in Latin America in 2014. On 11 February 1930 it was declared a university by a decree of Pope Pius XI. It received recognition by the Chilean government as an appointed Pontifical University in 1931. Joaquín Larraín Gandarillas (1822–1897), Archbishop of Anazarba, was the founder and first rector of the PUC. The PUC is a modern university; the campus of San Joaquin has a number of contemporary buildings and offers many parks and sports facilities. Several courses are conducted in English. Ex-president, Sebastián Piñera, minister Ricardo Raineri, and minister Hernán de Solminihac all attended PUC as students and worked in PUC as professors. In the 2010 admission process, approximately 48% of the students who achieved the best score in the Prueba de Selección Universitaria matriculated in the UC.


title: Max Greenfield

text: Max Greenfield (born September 4, 1979) is an American actor. He appeared in recurring roles in "Veronica Mars" and "Ugly Betty". He co-starred as Schmidt in the Fox sitcom "New Girl", for which he received nominations at the Primetime Emmy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, and the Critics' Choice Television Awards. Since 2018, Greenfield has portrayed Dave Johnson in the CBS sitcom "The Neighborhood".


title: Max Greenfield

text: He voiced Roger in the "Ice Age" franchise, and numerous characters in the shows "Bob's Burgers", "Robot Chicken" and "BoJack Horseman".


title: Max Greenfield

text: Greenfield was born and raised in Dobbs Ferry, New York. He is Jewish and had a "Saturday Night Live"-themed Bar Mitzvah. He graduated from Dobbs Ferry High School in 1998. At DFHS, Greenfield played wide receiver for the football team.


title: Max Greenfield

text: Greenfield began pursuing an acting career in 1998 after he graduated from high school. He landed guest appearances on dramas such as "Boston Public", "Gilmore Girls" and "The O.C." Greenfield scored his first lead role on the short-lived series "Modern Men" as one of three bachelors who hire a life coach to help them understand women. Greenfield had more success in supporting roles on "Veronica Mars" (reprising the role in the film adaptation in 2014) and "Greek". In 2007 he landed a recurring role on "Ugly Betty". He made other guest-starring appearances on the remake of "Melrose Place", the short-lived "No Ordinary Family", and "Castle".


title: Max Greenfield

text: He created, produced, and starred in the comedy series "The Gentlemen's League" for the Audience Network in 2010, which followed the real-life fantasy football league he ran with actor Jerry Ferrara. Greenfield had his feature film debut in the film "Cross Bronx". Greenfield had a featured role in "When Do We Eat?", as an Internet tycoon who, after losing his fortune, becomes a Hasidic Jew. In 2011, Greenfield began playing the role of Schmidt in the sitcom "New Girl". The role earned him nominations for both a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.


title: Max Greenfield

text: In 2015, Greenfield starred in a series of McDonald's commercials promoting their Sirloin Third Pound Burgers.


title: Max Greenfield

text: In 2018, Greenfield was cast in the lead role of Dave Johnson in the CBS comedy "The Neighborhood". He took over the role from Josh Lawson, who played the character in the pilot episode. On November 8, 2018, it was announced that Greenfield is set to reprise his role as Leo D'Amato in the 8-episode revival series of "Veronica Mars". In the same year, Greenfield was cast in the recurring role of the Denouement brothers on the third season of the Netflix comedy drama series "A Series of Unfortunate Events".


title: Max Greenfield

text: Max Greenfield has worked with Young Storytellers Foundation on numerous occasions, stating that his own kids have inspired him to help children find self-confidence and creativity.


title: Max Greenfield

text: He has been married to casting director Tess Sanchez since 2008. They have two children, a daughter Lilly and a son Ozzie.


title: Purgatory

text: Purgatory (, borrowed into English via Anglo-Norman and Old French) is, according to the belief of some Christian denominations (mostly Catholic), an intermediate state after physical death for expiatory purification. The process of purgatory is the final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. Tradition, by reference to certain texts of scripture, sees the process as involving a cleansing fire.


title: Purgatory

text: Some forms of Western Christianity, particularly within Protestantism, deny its existence. Other strands of Western Christianity see purgatory as a place, perhaps filled with fire. Some concepts of Gehenna in Judaism resemble those of purgatory.


title: Purgatory

text: The word "purgatory" has come to refer to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation. English-speakers also use the word in a non-specific sense to mean any place or condition of suffering or torment, especially one that is temporary.


title: Purgatory

text: According to Jacques Le Goff, the conception of purgatory as a physical place came into existence in Western Europe toward the end of the twelfth century. Le Goff states that the concept involves the idea of a purgatorial fire, which he suggests "is expiatory and purifying not punitive like hell fire". At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, when the Catholic Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on purgatory, the Eastern Orthodox Church did not adopt the doctrine. The council made no mention of purgatory as a third place or as containing fire, which are absent also in the declarations by the Councils of Florence (1431-1449) and of Trent (1545-1563). Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have declared that the term does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence.


title: Purgatory

text: The Church of England, mother church of the Anglican Communion, officially denounces what it calls "the Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory", but the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and elements of the Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist traditions hold that for some there is cleansing after death and pray for the dead. The Reformed Churches teach that the departed are delivered from their sins through the process of glorification. Rabbinical Judaism also believes in the possibility of after-death purification and may even use the word "purgatory" to describe the similar rabbinical concept of Gehenna, though Gehenna is also sometimes described as more similar to hell or Hades.


title: Purgatory

text: While use of the word "purgatory" (in Latin "purgatorium", a place of cleansing, from the verb "purgo", "to clean, cleanse") as a noun appeared perhaps only between 1160 and 1180, giving rise to the idea of purgatory as a place (what Jacques Le Goff called the "birth" of purgatory), the Roman Catholic tradition of purgatory as a transitional condition has a history that dates back, even before Jesus Christ, to the worldwide practice of caring for the dead and praying for them and to the belief, found also in Judaism, which is considered the precursor of Christianity, that prayer for the dead contributed to their afterlife purification. The same practice appears in other traditions, such as the medieval Chinese Buddhist practice of making offerings on behalf of the dead, who are said to suffer numerous trials.


title: Purgatory

text: The Catholic church found specific Old Testament support in after-life purification in 2 Maccabees 12:42–45, part of the Catholic biblical canon but regarded as apocryphal by Protestants. And according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church praying for the dead was adopted by Christians from the beginning, a practice that presupposes that the dead are thereby assisted between death and their entry into their final abode. The New American Bible Revised Edition, authorized by the United States Catholic bishops, says in a note to the 2 Maccabees passage: "This is the earliest statement of the doctrine that prayers and sacrifices for the dead are efficacious. Judas probably intended his purification offering to ward off punishment from the living. The author, however, uses the story to demonstrate belief in the resurrection of the just, and in the possibility of expiation for the sins of otherwise good people who have died. This belief is similar to, but not quite the same as, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory."


title: Purgatory

text: Over the centuries, theologians and others have developed theories, imagined descriptions and composed legends that have contributed to the formation of a popular idea of purgatory much more detailed and elaborate than the quite minimal elements that have been officially declared to be part of the authentic teaching of the Church.


title: Purgatory

text: Shortly before becoming a Roman Catholic, the English scholar John Henry Newman argued that the "essence" of the doctrine is locatable in ancient tradition, and that the core consistency of such beliefs is evidence that Christianity was "originally given to us from heaven". The Catholic Church's teaching on purgatory, defined in the Second Council of Lyon (1274), the Council of Florence (1438–1445), and the Council of Trent (1545–63), is without the imaginative accretions of the popular idea of purgatory.


title: Purgatory

text: Some Christians, typically Roman Catholics, recognize the doctrine of purgatory, while many Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches would not use the same terminology, the former on the basis of their own "sola scriptura" doctrine, combined with their exclusion of 2 Maccabees from the Protestant canon of the Bible, the latter because of their rejection of the term "purgatory", although acknowledging an intermediate state after death and before final judgment; for this reason the Eastern Orthodox offer prayers for the dead.


title: Purgatory

text: The Catholic Church holds that "all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified" undergo a process of purification, which the Church calls purgatory, "so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven". Catholicism bases its teaching also on the practice of praying for the dead, in use within the Church ever since the Church began, and mentioned in the deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees 12:46.


title: Purgatory

text: The Catholic Church gives the name "purgatory" to what it calls the after-death purification of "all who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified.” Though in popular imagination purgatory is pictured as a place rather than a process of purification, the idea of purgatory as a physical place with time is not part of the Church's doctrine. Fire, another important element of the purgatory of popular imagination, is also absent in the Catholic Church's doctrine.


title: Purgatory

text: At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, the Catholic Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on purgatory, in two points:


title: Purgatory

text: A century and a half later, the Council of Florence repeated the same two points in practically the same words, again excluding certain elements of the purgatory of popular imagination, in particular fire and place, against which representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church spoke at the council:


title: Purgatory

text: The Council of Trent repeated the same two points and moreover in its 4 December 1563 Decree Concerning Purgatory recommended avoidance of speculations and non-essential questions:


title: Purgatory

text: Catholic doctrine on purgatory is presented as composed of the same two points in the "Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church", first published in 2005, which is a summary in dialogue form of the "Catechism of the Catholic Church". It deals with purgatory in the following exchange:


title: Purgatory

text: These two questions and answers summarize information in sections 1030–1032 and 1054 of the "Catechism of the Catholic Church", published in 1992, which also speaks of purgatory in sections 1472−1473.


title: Purgatory

text: The prayers of the saints in Heaven and the good deeds, works of mercy, prayers, and indulgences of the living have a twofold effect: they help the souls in Purgatory atone for their sins and they make the souls' own prayers for the living effective, since the merits of the saints in Heaven, on Earth, and in Purgatory are part of the treasury of merit. Whenever the Eucharist is celebrated, souls in Purgatory are purified - i.e., they receive a full remission of sin and punishment - and go to Heaven.


title: Purgatory

text: According to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, those who die in God's grace and friendship imperfectly purified, although they are assured of their eternal salvation, undergo a purification after death, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of God.


title: Purgatory

text: Unless "redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness", mortal sin, whose object is grave matter and is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent, "causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back." Such sin "makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the 'eternal punishment' of sin".


title: Purgatory

text: Venial sin, while not depriving the sinner of friendship with God or the eternal happiness of heaven, "weakens charity, manifests a disordered affection for created goods, and impedes the soul's progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment", for "every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the 'temporal punishment' of sin".


title: Purgatory

text: "These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain."


title: Purgatory

text: This purification from our sinful tendencies has been compared to rehabilitation of someone who needs to be cleansed of any addiction, a gradual and probably painful process. It can be advanced during life by voluntary self-mortification and penance and by deeds of generosity that show love of God rather than of creatures. If not completed before death, it can still be a needed for entering the divine presence. Saint Catherine of Genoa said: "As for paradise, God has placed no doors there. Whoever wishes to enter, does so. An all-merciful God stands there with His arms open, waiting to receive us into His glory. I also see, however, that the divine presence is so pure and light-filled – much more than we can imagine – that the soul that has but the slightest imperfection would rather throw itself into a thousand hells than appear thus before the divine presence."


title: Purgatory

text: A person seeking purification from sinful tendencies is not alone. Because of the communion of saints: "the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin". The Catholic Church states that, through the granting of indulgences for manifestations of devotion, penance and charity by the living, it opens for individuals "the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins".


title: Purgatory

text: Some Catholic saints and theologians have had sometimes conflicting ideas about purgatory beyond those adopted by the Catholic Church, reflecting or contributing to the popular image, which includes the notions of purification by actual fire, in a determined place and for a precise length of time. Paul J. Griffiths notes: "Recent Catholic thought on purgatory typically preserves the essentials of the basic doctrine while also offering second-hand speculative interpretations of these elements". Thus Joseph Ratzinger wrote: "Purgatory is not, as Tertullian thought, some kind of supra-worldly concentration camp where man is forced to undergo punishment in a more or less arbitrary fashion. Rather it is the inwardly necessary process of transformation in which a person becomes capable of Christ, capable of God, and thus capable of unity with the whole communion of saints".


title: Purgatory

text: The speculations and popular imaginings that, especially in late medieval times, were common in the Western or Latin Church have not necessarily found acceptance in the eastern Catholic Churches, of which there are 23 in full communion with the Pope. Some have explicitly rejected the notions of punishment by fire in a particular place that are prominent in the popular picture of purgatory. The representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church at the Council of Florence argued against these notions, while declaring that they do hold that there is a cleansing after death of the souls of the saved and that these are assisted by the prayers of the living: "If souls depart from this life in faith and charity but marked with some defilements, whether unrepented minor ones or major ones repented of but without having yet borne the fruits of repentance, we believe that within reason they are purified of those faults, but not by some purifying fire and particular punishments in some place." The definition of purgatory adopted by that council excluded the two notions with which the Orthodox disagreed and mentioned only the two points that, they said, were part of their faith also. Accordingly, the agreement, known as the Union of Brest, that formalized the admission of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church into the full communion of the Roman Catholic Church stated: "We shall not debate about purgatory, but we entrust ourselves to the teaching of the Holy Church".


title: Purgatory

text: Fire has an important place in the popular image of purgatory and has been the object of speculation by theologians, speculation to which the article on purgatory in the "Catholic Encyclopedia" relates the warning by the Council of Trent against "difficult and subtle questions which tend not to edification."


title: Purgatory

text: Fire has never been included in the Catholic Church's defined doctrine on purgatory, but speculation about it is traditional. "The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire." In this regard the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" references in particular two New Testament passages: "If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" and "so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ". Catholic theologians have also cited verses such as "I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, 'They are my people'; and they will say, 'The LORD is my God'", a verse that the Jewish school of Shammai applied to God's judgment on those who are not completely just nor entirely evil.


title: Purgatory

text: Use of the image of a purifying fire goes back as far as Origen who, with reference to , seen as referring to a process by which the dross of lighter transgressions will be burnt away, and the soul, thus purified, will be saved, wrote: "Suppose you have built, after the "foundation" which Christ Jesus has taught, not only "gold, silver, and precious stones" − if indeed you possess gold and much silver or little − suppose you have "silver, precious stones", but I say not only these elements, but suppose that you have also "wood and hay and stubble", what does he wish you to become after your final departure? To enter afterwards then into the holy lands with your "wood" and with your "hay" and "stubble" so that you may defile the Kingdom of God? But again do you want to be left behind in the fire on account of the "hay", the "wood", the "stubble", and to receive nothing due you for the "gold" and the "silver" and "precious stone"? That is not reasonable. What then? It follows that you receive the "fire first" due to the "wood", and the "hay" and the "stubble". For to those able to perceive, our God is said to be in reality "a consuming fire"." Origen also speaks of a refining fire melting away the lead of evil deeds, leaving behind only pure gold.


title: Purgatory

text: Saint Augustine tentatively put forward the idea of a post-death purgatorial fire for some Christian believers: "69. It is not incredible that something like this should occur after this life, whether or not it is a matter for fruitful inquiry. It may be discovered or remain hidden whether some of the faithful are sooner or later to be saved by a sort of purgatorial fire, in proportion as they have loved the goods that perish, and in proportion to their attachment to them."


title: Purgatory

text: Gregory the Great also argued for the existence, before Judgment, of a "purgatorius ignis" (a cleansing fire) to purge away minor faults (wood, hay, stubble) not mortal sins (iron, bronze, lead). Pope St. Gregory, in the Dialogues, quotes Christ's words (in Mat 12:32) to establish Purgatory: "But yet we must believe that before the day of judgment there is a Purgatory fire for certain small sins: because our Saviour saith, that he which speaketh blasphemy against the holy Ghost, that it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come. (Mat 12:32) Out of which sentence we learn, that some sins are forgiven in this world, and some other may be pardoned in the next: for that which is denied concerning one sin, is consequently understood to be granted touching some other."


title: Purgatory

text: Gregory of Nyssa several times spoke of purgation by fire after death, but he generally has apocatastasis in mind.


title: Purgatory

text: Medieval theologians accepted the association of purgatory with fire. Thus the "Summa Theologica" of Thomas Aquinas considered it probable that purgatory was situated close to hell, so that the same fire that tormented the damned cleansed the just souls in purgatory.


title: Purgatory

text: Ideas about the supposed fire of purgatory have changed with time: in the early 20th century the "Catholic Encyclopedia" reported that, while in the past most theologians had held that the fire of purgatory was in some sense a material fire, though of a nature different from ordinary fire, the view of what then seemed to be the majority of theologians was that the term was to be understood metaphorically.


title: Purgatory

text: Pope Benedict XVI recommended to theologians the presentation of purgatory by Saint Catherine of Genoa, for whom purgatory is not an external but an inner fire: "The Saint speaks of the soul's journey of purification on the way to full communion with God, starting from her own experience of profound sorrow for the sins committed, in comparison with God's infinite love. [...] 'The soul', Catherine says, 'presents itself to God still bound to the desires and suffering that derive from sin and this makes it impossible for it to enjoy the beatific vision of God'. Catherine asserts that God is so pure and holy that a soul stained by sin cannot be in the presence of the divine majesty. We too feel how distant we are, how full we are of so many things that we cannot see God. The soul is aware of the immense love and perfect justice of God and consequently suffers for having failed to respond in a correct and perfect way to this love; and love for God itself becomes a flame, love itself cleanses it from the residue of sin."


title: Purgatory

text: In his 2007 encyclical "Spe salvi", Pope Benedict XVI, referring to the words of Paul the Apostle in about a fire that both burns and saves, spoke of the opinion that "the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away.


title: Purgatory

text: This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation 'as through fire'. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.


title: Purgatory

text: In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ's Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves.


title: Purgatory

text: The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the 'duration' of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming 'moment' of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning – it is the heart's time, it is the time of 'passage' to communion with God in the Body of Christ."


title: Purgatory

text: In his "La naissance du Purgatoire" ("The Birth of Purgatory"), Jacques Le Goff attributes the origin of the idea of a third other-world domain, similar to heaven and hell, called Purgatory, to Paris intellectuals and Cistercian monks at some point in the last three decades of the twelfth century, possibly as early as 1170−1180. Previously, the Latin adjective "purgatorius", as in "purgatorius ignis" (cleansing fire) existed, but only then did the noun "purgatorium" appear, used as the name of a place called Purgatory. St. Robert Bellarmine also taught "that Purgatory, at least the ordinary place of expiation, is situated in the interior of the earth, that the souls in Purgatory and the reprobate are in the same subterranean space in the deep abyss which the Scripture calls Hell."


title: Purgatory

text: The change happened at about the same time as the composition of the book "Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii", an account by an English Cistercian of a penitent knight's visit to the land of purgatory reached through a cave in the island known as Station Island or St Patrick's Purgatory in the lake of Lough Derg, County Donegal, Ireland. Le Goff said this book "occupies an essential place in the history of Purgatory, in whose success it played an important, if not decisive, role".


title: Purgatory

text: One of the earliest depictions of St Patrick's Purgatory is a fresco in the Convent of San Francisco in Todi, Umbria, Italy. Whitewashed long ago, this fresco was only restored in 1976. The painter was likely Jacopo di Mino del Pellicciaio, and the date of the fresco is around 1345. Purgatory is shown as a rocky hill filled with separate openings into its hollow center. Above the mountain St Patrick introduces the prayers of the faithful that can help attenuate the sufferings of the souls undergoing purification. In each opening, sinners are tormented by demons and by fire. Each of the seven deadly sins – avarice, envy, sloth, pride, anger, lust, and gluttony – has its own region of purgatory and its own appropriate tortures.


title: Purgatory

text: Le Goff dedicates the final chapter of his book to the "Purgatorio", the second canticle of the "Divine Comedy", a poem by fourteenth-century Italian author Dante Alighieri. In an interview Le Goff declared: "Dante's "Purgatorio" represents the sublime conclusion of the slow development of Purgatory that took place in the course of the Middle Ages. The power of Dante's poetry made a decisive contribution to fixing in the public imagination this 'third place', whose birth was on the whole quite recent." Dante pictures the purgatory as an island at the antipodes of Jerusalem, pushed up, in an otherwise empty sea, by the displacement caused by the fall of Satan, which left him fixed at the central point of the globe of the Earth. The cone-shaped island has seven terraces on which souls are cleansed from the seven deadly sins or capital vices as they ascend. Additional spurs at the base hold those for whom beginning the ascent is delayed because in life they were excommunicates indolent or late repenters. At the summit is the Garden of Eden, from where the souls, cleansed of evil tendencies and made perfect, are taken to heaven.


title: Purgatory

text: The Catholic Church has included in its teaching the idea of a purgatory rather as a condition than a place. On 4 August 1999, Pope John Paul II, speaking of purgatory, said: "The term does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence. Those who, after death, exist in a state of purification, are already in the love of Christ who removes from them the remnants of imperfection as "a condition of existence".


title: Purgatory

text: Similarly in 2011, Pope Benedict XVI, speaking of Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) in relation to purgatory, said that "In her day it was depicted mainly using images linked to space: a certain space was conceived of in which purgatory was supposed to be located. Catherine, however, did not see purgatory as a scene in the bowels of the earth: for her it is not an exterior but rather an interior fire. This is purgatory: an inner fire."


title: Purgatory

text: While the Eastern Orthodox Church rejects the term "purgatory", it acknowledges an intermediate state after death and before final judgment, and offers prayer for the dead. According to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America:


title: Purgatory

text: The moral progress of the soul, either for better or for worse, ends at the very moment of the separation of the body and soul; at that very moment the definite destiny of the soul in the everlasting life is decided. ...There is no way of repentance, no way of escape, no reincarnation and no help from the outside world. Its place is decided forever by its Creator and judge. The Orthodox Church does not believe in purgatory (a place of purging), that is, the inter-mediate state after death in which the souls of the saved (those who have not received temporal punishment for their sins) are purified of all taint preparatory to entering into Heaven, where every soul is perfect and fit to see God. Also, the Orthodox Church does not believe in indulgences as remissions from purgatorial punishment. Both purgatory and indulgences are inter-corelated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church, and when they were enforced and applied they brought about evil practices at the expense of the prevailing Truths of the Church. If Almighty God in His merciful loving-kindness changes the dreadful situation of the sinner, it is unknown to the Church of Christ. The Church lived for fifteen hundred years without such a theory.


title: Purgatory

text: Eastern Orthodox teaching is that, while all undergo an individual judgment immediately after death, neither the just nor the wicked attain the final state of bliss or punishment before the Last Day, with some exceptions for righteous souls like the Theotokos (Blessed Virgin Mary), "who was borne by the angels directly to heaven."


title: Purgatory

text: The Eastern Orthodox Church holds that it is necessary to believe in this intermediate after-death state in which souls are perfected and brought to full divinization, a process of growth rather than of punishment, which some Orthodox have called purgatory. Eastern Orthodox theology does not generally describe the situation of the dead as involving suffering or fire, although it nevertheless describes it as a "direful condition". The souls of the righteous dead are in light and rest, with a foretaste of eternal happiness; but the souls of the wicked are in a state the reverse of this. Among the latter, such souls as have departed with faith but "without having had time to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance ... may be aided towards the attainment of a blessed resurrection [at the end of time] by prayers offered in their behalf, especially those offered in union with the oblation of the bloodless sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, and by works of mercy done in faith for their memory."


title: Purgatory

text: The "Orthodox Confession" of Peter Mogila (1596–1646), adopted, in a Greek translation by Meletius Syrigos, by the 1642 Council of Jassy in Romania, professes that "many are freed from the prison of hell ... through the good works of the living and the Church's prayers for them, most of all through the unbloody sacrifice, which is offered on certain days for all the living and the dead" (question 64); and (under the heading "How must one consider the purgatorial fire?") "the Church rightly performs for them the unbloody sacrifice and prayers, but they do not cleanse themselves by suffering something. The Church never maintained that which pertains to the fanciful stories of some concerning the souls of their dead who have not done penance and are punished, as it were, in streams, springs and swamps." (question 66).


title: Purgatory

text: The Eastern Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem (1672) declared: "The souls of those that have fallen asleep are either at rest or in torment, according to what each hath wrought" (an enjoyment or condemnation that will be complete only after the resurrection of the dead); but the souls of some "depart into Hades, and there endure the punishment due to the sins they have committed. But they are aware of their future release from there, and are delivered by the Supreme Goodness, through the prayers of the Priests and the good works which the relatives of each do for their Departed, especially the unbloody Sacrifice benefiting the most, which each offers particularly for his relatives that have fallen asleep and which the Catholic and Apostolic Church offers daily for all alike. Of course, it is understood that we do not know the time of their release. We know and believe that there is deliverance for such from their direful condition, and that before the common resurrection and judgment, but when we know not."


title: Purgatory

text: Some Orthodox believe in a teaching of "aerial toll-houses" for the souls of the dead. According to this theory, which is rejected by other Orthodox but appears in the hymnology of the Church, "following a person's death the soul leaves the body and is escorted to God by angels. During this journey the soul passes through an aerial realm which is ruled by demons. The soul encounters these demons at various points referred to as 'toll-houses' where the demons then attempt to accuse it of sin and, if possible, drag the soul into hell."


title: Purgatory

text: In general, Protestant churches reject the Catholic doctrine of purgatory although some teach the existence of an intermediate state. Many Protestant denominations, though not all, teach the doctrine of "sola scriptura" ("scripture alone") or "prima scriptura" ("scripture first"). The general Protestant view is that the Bible, from which Protestants exclude deuterocanonical books such as 2 Maccabees, contains no overt, explicit discussion of purgatory and therefore it should be rejected as an unbiblical belief.


title: Purgatory

text: Another view held by many Protestants, such as the Lutheran Churches and the Reformed Churches, is "sola fide" ("by faith alone"): that faith alone is what achieves salvation, and that good works are merely "evidence" of that faith. Justification is generally seen as a discrete event that takes place once for all during one's lifetime, not the result of a transformation of character. However, most Protestants teach that a transformation of character naturally follows the salvation experience; others, such as those of the Methodist tradition (inclusive of the Holiness Movement) teach that after justification, Christians must pursue holiness and good works. Those who have been saved by God are destined for heaven, while those have not been saved will be excluded from heaven.


title: Purgatory

text: Some Protestants hold that a person enters into the fullness of one's bliss or torment only after the resurrection of the body, and that the soul in that interim state is conscious and aware of the fate in store for it. Others have held that souls in the intermediate state between death and resurrection are without consciousness, a state known as soul sleep.


title: Purgatory

text: As an argument for the existence of purgatory, Protestant religious philosopher Jerry L. Walls wrote "Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation" (2012). He lists some "biblical hints of purgatory" (Mal 3:2; 2 Mac 12:41–43; Mat 12:32; 1 Cor 3:12) that helped give rise to the doctrine, and finds its beginnings in early Christian writers whom he calls "Fathers and Mothers of Purgatory". Citing Le Goff, he sees the 12th century as that of the "birth of purgatory", arising as "a natural development of certain currents of thought that had been flowing for centuries", and the 13th century at that of its rationalization, "purging it of its offensive popular trappings", leading to its definition by a council as the Church's doctrine in 1274.


title: Purgatory

text: Walls does not base his belief in purgatory primarily on Scripture, the Mothers and Fathers of the Church, or the magisterium (doctrinal authority) of the Catholic church. Rather his basic argument is that, in a phrase he often uses, it "makes sense." For Walls, purgatory has a logic, as in the title of his book. He documents the "contrast between the satisfaction and sanctification models" of purgatory. In the satisfaction model, "the punishment of purgatory" is to satisfy God's justice. In the sanctification model, Wall writes: "Purgatory might be pictured ... as a regimen to regain one’s spiritual health and get back into moral shape."


title: Purgatory

text: In Catholic theology Walls finds that the doctrine of purgatory has "swung" between the "poles of satisfaction and sanctification" sometimes "combining both elements somewhere in the middle". He believes the sanctification model "can be affirmed by Protestants without in any way contradicting their theology" and that they may find that it "makes better sense of how the remains of sin are purged" than an instantaneous cleansing at the moment of death.


title: Purgatory

text: While purgatory was disputed by the Reformers, some early patristic theologians of the Eastern Church taught and believed in "apocatastasis", the belief that all creation would be restored to its original perfect condition after a remedial purgatorial reformation. Clement of Alexandria was one of the early church theologians who taught this view. Protestants have always contended that there are no second chances. However, for Lutherans a similar doctrine of what may happen to the unevangelized is expressed in the book titled "What about those who never heard". The reality of purgatorial purification is envisaged in Thomas Talbott's "The Inescapable Love of God" Different views are expressed by different theologians in two different editions of "Four Views of Hell".


title: Purgatory

text: Anglicans, as with other Reformed Churches, historically teach that the saved undergo the process of glorification after death. This process has been compared by Jerry L. Walls and James B. Gould with the process of purification in the core doctrine of purgatory (see Reformed, below).


title: Purgatory

text: Purgatory was addressed by both of the "foundation features" of Anglicanism in the 16th century: the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer.


title: Purgatory

text: Article XXII of the Thirty-Nine Articles states that "The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory . . . is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God." Prayers for the departed were deleted from the 1552 Book of Common Prayer because they suggested a doctrine of purgatory. The 19th century Anglo-Catholic revival led to restoring prayers for the dead.


title: Purgatory

text: John Henry Newman, in his "Tract XC" of 1841 §6, discussed Article XXII. He highlighted the fact that it is the "Romish" doctrine of purgatory coupled with indulgences that Article XXII condemns as "repugnant to the Word of God." The article did not condemn every doctrine of purgatory and it did not condemn prayers for the dead.


title: Purgatory

text: As of the year 2000, the state of the doctrine of purgatory in Anglicanism was summarized as follows:Purgatory is seldom mentioned in Anglican descriptions or speculations concerning life after death, although many Anglicans believe in a continuing process of growth and development after death.


title: Purgatory

text: Anglican Bishop John Henry Hobart (1775–1830) wrote that "Hades, or the place of the dead, is represented as a spacious "receptacle" with gates, through which the dead enter." "The Anglican Catechist" of 1855 elaborated on Hades, stating that it "is an intermediate state between death and the resurrection, in which the soul does not sleep in unconsciousness, but exists in happiness or misery till the resurrection, when it shall be reunited to the body and receive its final reward." This intermediate state includes both Paradise and Gehenna, "but with an impassable gulf between the two". Souls remain in Hades until the Final Judgment and "Christians may also improve in holiness after death during the middle state before the final judgment."


title: Purgatory

text: Leonel L. Mitchell (1930–2012) offers this rationale for prayers for the dead:No one is ready at the time of death to enter into life in the nearer presence of God without substantial growth precisely in love, knowledge, and service; and the prayer also recognizes that God will provide what is necessary for us to enter that state. This growth will presumably be between death and resurrection."


title: Purgatory

text: Anglican theologian C. S. Lewis (1898–1963), reflecting on the history of the doctrine of purgatory in the Anglican Communion, said there were good reasons for "casting doubt on the 'Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory' as that Romish doctrine had then become" not merely a "commercial scandal" but also the picture in which the souls are tormented by devils, whose presence is "more horrible and grievous to us than is the pain itself," and where the spirit who suffers the tortures cannot, for pain, "remember God as he ought to do." Lewis believed instead in purgatory as presented in John Henry Newman's "The Dream of Gerontius". By this poem, Lewis wrote, "Religion has reclaimed Purgatory," a process of purification that will normally involve suffering. Lewis's allegory "The Great Divorce" (1945) considered a version of purgatory in the related idea of a "refrigidarium", the opportunity for souls to visit a lower region of heaven and choose to be saved, or not.


title: Purgatory

text: A core statement of Lutheran doctrine, from the Book of Concord, states: "We know that the ancients speak of prayer for the dead, which we do not prohibit; but we disapprove of the application "ex opere operato" of the Lord's Supper on behalf of the dead. ... Epiphanius testifies that Aerius held that prayers for the dead are useless. With this he finds fault. Neither do we favor Aerius, but we do argue with you because you defend a heresy that clearly conflicts with the prophets, apostles, and Holy Fathers, namely, that the Mass justifies "ex opere operato", that it merits the remission of guilt and punishment even for the unjust, to whom it is applied, if they do not present an obstacle." (Philipp Melanchthon, "Apology of the Augsburg Confession"). Lutheran Reformer Mikael Agricola still believed in the basic beliefs of purgatory. Purgatory as such is not mentioned at all in the Augsburg Confession, which claims that "our churches dissent in no article of the faith from the Church Catholic, but only omit some abuses which are new."


title: Purgatory

text: Methodist churches, in keeping with Article XIV - Of Purgatory in the Articles of Religion, hold that "the Romish doctrine concerning purgatory ... is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God." However, in the Methodist Church, there is a belief in Hades, "the intermediate state of souls between death and the general resurrection," which is divided into Paradise (for the righteous) and Gehenna (for the wicked). After the general judgment, Hades will be abolished. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, "made a distinction between hell (the receptacle of the damned) and Hades (the receptacle of all separate spirits), and also between paradise (the antechamber of heaven) and heaven itself." The dead will remain in Hades "until the Day of Judgment when we will all be bodily resurrected and stand before Christ as our Judge. After the Judgment, the Righteous will go to their eternal reward in Heaven and the Accursed will depart to Hell (see )."


title: Purgatory

text: After death, Reformed theology teaches that through glorification, God "not only delivers His people from all their suffering and from death, but delivers them too from all their sins." In glorification, Reformed Christians believe that the departed are "raised and made like the glorious body of Christ". Reformed theologian John F. MacArthur has written that "nothing in Scripture even hints at the notion of purgatory, and nothing indicates that our glorification will in any way be painful."


title: Purgatory

text: Jerry L. Walls and James B. Gould have likened the glorification process to the core or sanctification view of purgatory "Grace is much more than forgiveness, it is also transformation and sanctification, and finally, glorification. We need more than forgiveness and justification to purge our sinful dispositions and make us fully ready for heaven. Purgatory is nothing more than the continuation of the sanctifying grace we need, for as long as necessary to complete the job".


title: Purgatory

text: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, teaches of an intermediate place for spirits between their death and their bodily resurrection. This place, called "the spirit world," includes "paradise" for the righteous and "prison" for those who do not know God. Spirits in paradise serve as missionaries to the spirits in prison, who can still accept salvation. In this sense, spirit prison can be conceptualized as a type of purgatory. In addition to hearing the message from the missionary spirits, the spirits in prison can also accept posthumous baptism and other posthumous ordinances performed by living church members in temples on Earth. This is frequently referred to as "baptism for the dead" and "temple work." Members of the Church believe that during the three days following Christ's crucifixion, he organized spirits in paradise and commissioned them to preach to the spirits in prison.


title: Purgatory

text: In Judaism, Gehenna is a place of purification where, according to some traditions, most sinners spend up to a year before release.


title: Purgatory

text: The view of purgatory can be found in the teaching of the Shammaites: "In the last judgment day there shall be three classes of souls: the righteous shall at once be written down for the life everlasting; the wicked, for Gehenna; but those whose virtues and sins counterbalance one another shall go down to Gehenna and float up and down until they rise purified; for of them it is said: 'I will bring the third part into the fire and refine them as silver is refined, and try them as gold is tried' [Zech. xiii. 9.]; also, 'He [the Lord] bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth up again'" (I Sam. ii. 6). The Hillelites seem to have had no purgatory; for they said: "He who is 'plenteous in mercy' [Ex. xxxiv. 6.] inclines the balance toward mercy, and consequently the intermediates do not descend into Gehenna" (Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 3; R. H. 16b; Bacher, "Ag. Tan." i. 18). Still they also speak of an intermediate state.


title: Purgatory

text: Regarding the time which purgatory lasts, the accepted opinion of R. Akiba is twelve months; according to R. Johanan b. Nuri, it is only forty-nine days. Both opinions are based upon Isa. lxvi. 23–24: "From one new moon to another and from one Sabbath to another shall all flesh come to worship before Me, and they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against Me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched"; the former interpreting the words "from one new moon to another" to signify all the months of a year; the latter interpreting the words "from one Sabbath to another," in accordance with Lev. xxiii. 15–16, to signify seven weeks. During the twelve months, declares the baraita (Tosef., Sanh. xiii. 4–5; R. H. 16b), the souls of the wicked are judged, and after these twelve months are over they are consumed and transformed into ashes under the feet of the righteous (according to Mal. iii. 21 [A. V. iv. 3]), whereas the great seducers and blasphemers are to undergo eternal tortures in Gehenna without cessation (according to Isa. lxvi. 24).


title: Purgatory

text: The righteous, however, and, according to some, also the sinners among the people of Israel for whom Abraham intercedes because they bear the Abrahamic sign of the covenant are not harmed by the fire of Gehenna even when they are required to pass through the intermediate state of purgatory ('Er. 19b; Ḥag. 27a).


title: Purgatory

text: Maimonides declares, in his 13 principles of faith, that the descriptions of Gehenna, as a place of punishment in rabbinic literature, were pedagocically motivated inventions to encourage respect of the Torah commandments by mankind, which had been regarded as immature. Instead of being sent to Gehenna, the souls of the wicked would actually get annihilated.


title: Purgatory

text: Islam has a concept similar to that of purgatory in Christianity. Barzakh is thought to be a realm between paradise (Jannah) and hell (Jahannam) and according to Ghazali the place of those who go neither to hell or to heaven. But because it does not purify the souls it resembles more the limbo than the purgatory.


title: Purgatory

text: In some cases, the Islamic concept of hell may resemble the concept of Catholic doctrine of purgatory, for Jahannam just punishes people according to their deeds and releases them after their habits are purified. A limited duration in Jahannam is not universally accepted in Islam.


title: Purgatory

text: In Mandaean cosmology, the soul must go through multiple "maṭarta" (i.e., purgatories, watch-stations, or toll-stations) after death before finally reaching the World of Light ("heaven").


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: Unfaithful is a 2002 erotic thriller film directed and produced by Adrian Lyne and starring Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Olivier Martinez, Erik Per Sullivan, Chad Lowe, and Dominic Chianese. It was adapted by Alvin Sargent and William Broyles Jr. from the 1969 French film "The Unfaithful Wife" by Claude Chabrol. It tells the story of a couple living in suburban New York City whose marriage goes dangerously awry when the wife indulges in an affair with a stranger she encounters by chance.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: "Unfaithful" grossed $52 million in North America and $119.1 million worldwide. Despite mixed reviews overall, Lane received much praise for her performance. She won awards for Best Actress from the National Society of Film Critics and New York Film Critics, and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Actress.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: Edward and Connie Sumner live in Westchester County, New York with their eight-year-old son, Charlie. Their marriage is loving but a little monotonous and lacking in passion. While shopping in the city, the wind knocks Connie into stranger Paul Martel and they both fall over. Seeing that she's scraped her knees, Paul invites her upstairs to his apartment to treat her injuries. Uncomfortable with his advances, she leaves.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: Finding Paul's phone number inside the book he gave her, Connie goes into the city and calls him. He invites her over and when she arrives, he again flirts with her. She leaves despite their mutual attraction, but visits again, and they share a dance. Again uncomfortable, Connie rushes out. When she returns to retrieve her coat, Paul literally sweeps her off her feet, carries her off to his bedroom, and they have sex. Connie is simultaneously turned on and terrified at what she's doing. However, they both relish the thrill of their affair, and Connie uses her work as an excuse to continue visiting Paul. Edward accidentally catches her in a lie, when a friend she said she was meeting for a fundraiser says he was out of town. This information makes Edward suspicious, and he notices Connie buying herself new lingerie, and daydreaming. Edward asks her to meet him for lunch one day, but she says can't because she has a salon appointment. Edward calls the salon and confirms Connie was lying.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: Edward hires a private investigator, Frank Wilson, and is devastated when he provides pictures of Connie and Paul together. The affair is taking its toll on Connie. Even though she feels guilty, Paul is distracting her from her family, and she is late to pick up Charlie from school.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: She realizes she can no longer carry on the affair. The following day, she goes to the grocery store to buy some groceries and then after she drives to Paul's home and prepares to end things in person. While she drives to his apartment, she discovers him running off to the library with another woman. She jumps out of her car and runs to the library to confront Paul and the other woman. As she is in the elevator alone with Paul, they have an argument. She questions him on how many women is he seeing but Paul avoids answering the question and tells Connie that the other woman is just a friend and nothing more. She then tells Paul that she doesn't want to see him anymore and tells him their affair is over. She also calls Paul a liar and tells him that she hates him. As he exits from the elevator, Connie then closes the elevator door but Paul forces it open and starts taunting her. This angers Connie even more and tries to close the door but Paul blocks it. She then angrily pushes Paul out her way and starts walking away. However, as she angrily storms out of Paul's apartment, he manages to chase after Connie, pushes her against the wall, and begins to seduce her. While continuing to undress her, Connie tries stopping and fighting him off but is unsuccessful. She then eventually allows him to seduce her and they have sex in the hallway of his apartment. She leaves, narrowly missing Edward, who has arrived to confront Paul. Paul lets him into his apartment and they discuss Connie. Edward is stunned to find a snow globe he had given her in the past, which Paul explains she had gifted to him. Edward is clearly becoming overwhelmed and snaps and fractures Paul's skull with the snow globe, killing him instantly.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: While cleaning up the evidence, Edward overhears a crying Connie leave a message for Paul, saying that she's ending the affair; she's tired of lying and hurting her family. Edward erases the message and puts Paul's body in the trunk of his car, and drives to Charlie's school play. In the parking lot, someone bumps into the back of his car, denting the trunk. Edward is scared he'll be found out but he tells the person not to worry about the damage. He later dumps Paul's body in a landfill.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: NYPD detectives arrive at the Sumner home, explaining that Paul's estranged wife has reported him missing. Connie is surprised to hear he had a wife, and claims she barely knows him. The detectives return a week later to reveal that Paul's body has been discovered. Edward and the detectives notice Connie growing visibly distraught upon hearing the news. Connie lies that she met Paul at a fundraiser which, to her surprise, Edward corroborates. Later, when taking Edward's clothes to the dry cleaner, she finds the photos of her and Paul, realizing Edward has known about the affair. At a party later she notices that the snow globe she gifted Paul has been returned to their collection. Sharing a meaningful look with Edward, she realizes he murdered Paul.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: They argue, and Edward says that he wanted to kill her instead of Paul. In the days that follow, Connie discovers a hidden compartment in the snow globe containing a photograph of her, Edward, and an infant Charlie, with a loving anniversary message. She and Edward share sad looks.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: As she burns the photographs of her and Paul, Edward says he will turn himself in, but Connie objects, saying they will find a way to move on, and they appear to return to a normal life together.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: On their way home from an event one evening, Edward stops at a red light with Charlie asleep in the backseat. Connie whispers that they could leave the country and assume new identities, and Edward agrees, consoling her as she cries. It is revealed that Edward has stopped the car near a police station.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: According to actor Richard Gere, an early draft of the screenplay presented the Sumners as suffering from a dysfunctional sexual relationship, which gave Connie some justification for having an affair. According to the actor and to director Adrian Lyne, the studio wanted to change the storyline so that the Sumners had a bad marriage with no sex, to create greater sympathy for Connie. Both men opposed the change; Lyne in particular felt that the studio's suggestions would have robbed the film of any drama: "I wanted two people who were perfectly happy. I loved the idea of the totally arbitrary nature of infidelity." The Sumners' relationship was rewritten as a good marriage, with her affair the result of a chance meeting.


title: Unfaithful (2002 film)

text: During pre-production, the producers received a videotaped audition from Olivier Martinez, who was selected for Paul. His character was portrayed as French once Martinez was cast. Lyne said, "I think it helps one understand how Connie might have leapt into this affair—he's very beguiling, doing even ordinary things." Once cast in the role, Martinez, with Lyne's approval, changed some of his dialogue and the scene in which he first seduces Lane's character, while she is looking at a book in Braille. According to Martinez, "The story that was invented before was much more sensual, erotic and clear."