Secrets of St Paul's: the story behind Macau's most famous landmark
As João Botas discovers, there’s more to the façade of Macau's famous landmark than meets the eye
Against all odds – whether war, wind or the passage of centuries – the Ruins of St Paul’s have stood as a unique reminder of Macau’s roots.
Most tourists who visit the façade probably see only the remains of an old church. But there’s more to its story.
In the mid-16th century, a group of priests from the Company of Jesus travelled to the Far East to spread Catholicism. In Macau, they built a church, a college, a residence, a library with thousands of books, and a farm with fruit trees and five wells, all surrounded by a wall with a few doors. One door remains from those days, near Na Tcha, a Chinese temple built in 1898.
Located at the top of a hill, the structure originally known as Mater Dei was the largest church in Asia at the time. Its existence was meant to express the triumph of the Roman Catholic Church through the splendour of the buildings.
The original structure was made of wood, which burned down in a fire in 1835, leaving only the granite façade and 68 stone steps. In 1904, a group of Catholics and civilians started a charity programme to rebuild the church, but it never came to pass. The remains of the walls were demolished in the early 1930s for use in the first Praia Grande landfills.
Most historians believe the church was designed by an Italian Jesuit named Carlo Spínola (1564-1622), but there is no record of the original plans.
