Ecuador

Two Basques left a mark in Ecuador that carries their own name, and both arrived already skilled in their calling: a Capuchin from Beizama who had been a missionary in China and died in the Amazon, and a stained-glass artist who crossed the ocean past the age of forty-seven to make the windows of a cathedral.

Alejandro Labaka, from Beizama to the Amazon

Alejandro Labaka Ugarte was born on 19 April 1920 in Beizama (Gipuzkoa) and joined the Capuchin order.³ Before Ecuador he was a missionary in China for seven years, until he was expelled, and in 1954 he arrived in the country he would never leave. In 1977 he made contact with the Huaorani of the Amazon.² He became a bishop and the apostolic vicar of Aguarico.³

That is where he died. On 21 July 1987 he was speared to death together with the Colombian Capuchin tertiary Inés Arango as they were trying to make contact with the Tagaeri, an indigenous people.² On 22 May 2025 Pope Leo XIV approved the decree that recognises their lives as a heroic offering and declares them both venerable, a step towards beatification.²³

Guillermo Larrazábal, the stained-glass artist of the cathedrals

Guillermo Larrazábal (1907-1983) had spent sixteen years working for art glass studios when he travelled to Ecuador, aged over 47, to make the stained-glass windows of Cuenca cathedral. He had been educated at a Jesuit school in Bizkaia and had learned the craft of glass in the workshop of Luis Lerchundi.⁵

That commission was only the beginning. Between 1955 and 1983 he filled the windows and rose windows of Ecuadorian churches and cathedrals: those of Cuenca, Ambato and Guayaquil, among others.⁴⁵ He died in June 1983.⁵

Where he was born is unclear. The study published by the Basque Government places his birth in Córdoba (Veracruz, Mexico), from where his family returned to the Basque Country when he was two;⁴ the biographical dictionary of Rodolfo Pérez Pimentel places it in Bilbao.⁵