The Luxburg Carolath Square

The Luxburg Carolath Square is one of the oldest and most important operational cemeteries in Venezuela. The Luxburg-Carolath cemetery was built between 1876 and 1877 and has more than 10,000 burials. The Luxburg Carolath Square is privately owned and operated by the Venezuelan, German and Swiss Luxburg Carolath Foundation.

The cemetery is located on Avenida Las Delicias in the city of Maracaibo, capital of the state of Zulia, the second largest city in Venezuela. The cemetery is one of the oldest in the country and was officially established on November 12, 1879 and was called “Nuevo Cementerio” (New Cemetery) before being renamed “El Cuadrado” (The Square).

El Cuadrado Luxburg Carolath was declared a national, regional and municipal heritage site in 2005. The Luxburg Carolath Foundation is the official owner and administrator of the cemetery.

The Luxburg Carolath Foundation received the El Cuadrado cemetery as a donation in August 2019. During the donation process, the last owners added the name of the cemetery and it became: “The Square of the Grafen von Luxburg Fursten zu Carolath-Beuthen und Prinzen von Schoenaich-Carolath”.

The Luxburg Carolath Foundation received El Cuadrado as a donation in August 2019. The state of the cemetery was and still is in total disrepair. 95% of the graves have been desecrated, all the columbariums have been destroyed and looted. The Luxburg Carolath Foundation has already carried out the cleaning work on the cemetery and has started to prepare a plan for the recovery and reconstruction of the cemetery in conjunction with the Government of Zulia and the Mayor's Office of Maracaibo. As it is a national, state and municipal heritage site, all the work must be approved by all the state levels.

El Cuadrado is the first cemetery in Venezuela to have a coat of arms, its own flag, its own anthem and a special flagpole. It is a unique heritage cemetery in all of Latin America because it is made up of 3 other cemeteries that were incorporated into it in 1942 during the reconstruction of the city of Maracaibo. These are:

The General Cemetery of the city of Maracaibo, also known as the Colonial Cemetery or Old Cemetery, was inaugurated in 1829. The Foreigners' Cemetery, also known as the German or English Cemetery, was inaugurated in 1834. All Protestant Christians, Jews, Evangelicals, Muslims, etc. were buried in this cemetery, not all of them Roman Catholics. The most famous cemetery in Saint Lucia was founded in 1881. The three iconic historical cemeteries were closed in 1942 and all the dead were transported to El Cuadrado. The de facto Luxburg Carolath cemetery contains 3 different historical cemeteries in one. The Square today preserves the different cultures, nationalities, religions, history and genealogy of the Marabinos and Zualianos since 1829, which represents an enormous unique social, multi-religious, ecumenical, historical and cultural value.

The reconstruction project consists mainly of preserving the cemetery for future generations, further securing its historical and cultural status, and building a church within the cemetery to return to the past tradition of having a cemetery built around a church. The church will be called “La Unión de la Iglesia” (Spanish for “The Union of the Church”) in recognition of the many citizens of different races, nationalities and religions buried in the Square. This name was proposed by the World Union of Ecumenical Churches (Conferencia Ecumenica Ecleciastica Mundial CEEM in Spanish). Reconstruction of the old and construction of the new columbarium; high retaining and security walls; professional gardening work in the planting of trees that no longer destroy the graves with their roots; Reconstruction of the entrance building with bathroom and offices. The Foundation will hire external companies and experts in cemetery administration and construction in order to fully preserve the old graves, the style and the history of the cemetery. The styles of architecture will best represent The Luxburg-Carolath Square. This will be done for the first time in a Venezuelan cemetery: to date, no professional cemetery architectural design has been carried out in Venezuelan cemeteries.