Cueva de Achbinico, also called cave of San Blas () is a Roman Catholic church and cave located in Candelaria, Tenerife, Canary Islands (Spain). After the conquest of the Canary Islands it was the first Christian sanctuary of religious significance. It was also the first sanctuary dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the Canary Islands, where the Virgin of Candelaria, the patron saint of the Canary islands, was worshipped. Situation and presentation The cave is located on the coast, just behind the basilica of Our Lady of Candelaria. It is elongated and deep, with a ceiling shaped as a dome. It is 14 meters long by 6 meters wide and 5 meters high. A small chapel was built just outside of it, covering and including within its walls the entrance of the cave. Inside the cave is a bronze replica of the Virgin of Candelaria. Her statue is most venerated on the island, and has turned the cave into the most important pilgrimage centre in the Canaries for the past 5 centuries. It is still visited by pilgrims, who commonly take and leave flushed candles and do requests to the Virgin. The Achbinico cave has a great importance, not only religious but also historic and prehistoric. History The cave long served as a Christian worship place. When the statue of the Virgin of Candelaria was found on Güimar's beach of Chimisay at the end of the 14th century, the island had not yet been conquered by the Kingdom of Castile and its native inhabitants were the Guanches. The statue's finders brought it to Acaymo, the Guanche king (or mencey), at his cave-palace of Chinguaro. The statue was translated to the Achbinico cave in 1446, the ceremony accompanied with popular celebrations. In one of the walls of the cave there is a picture explaining the story of the translation of the Virgin. In the lower part of it is a text that says: Guanches were baptized in the cave. The original baptismal font used to this effect is preserved in the basilica's camarín. In 1497, Tenerife conqueror Alonso Fernandez de Lugo held in this cave the first celebration of Candlemas, at the same time as the Festivity of the Purification of the Virgin. In 1526, on February 2 (Candlemas), the Virgin was translated from the cave to its new chapel. The current basilica of Candelaria, the primary Marian shrine of the