The disarticulated pieces were left in storage until 1976 when the parish priest, Father Francisco Rother, commissioned a local Maya sculptor named Diego Chavez Petzey to initiate repairs and carve replacement panels for those portions of the altarpiece which were too damaged for reuse. Diego was later joined in this project by his younger brother Nicolás Chavez Sojuel. The two brothers carried out the renovation of the altarpiece over a five year period, prematurely abandoning work with the death of Father Rother in 1981 at the hands of political assassins during the Guatemalan civil war.