Scribd
Upload
254 views2 pages

St. Lucy Church History

The Sta. Lucia Church was built in 1586 by Augustinian friars and is the only church in the Philippines with a dome similar to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It has a Romanesque style with rose windows and flying buttresses. The church interior has arched windows, ionic columns, and biblical scenes painted on the ceilings. The central altar houses an image of St. Lucy, the patron saint, which attracts pilgrims on her feast day in December. The church suffered damage in earthquakes but was repaired through community donations.

Uploaded by

Dan Dan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
254 views2 pages

St. Lucy Church History

The Sta. Lucia Church was built in 1586 by Augustinian friars and is the only church in the Philippines with a dome similar to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It has a Romanesque style with rose windows and flying buttresses. The church interior has arched windows, ionic columns, and biblical scenes painted on the ceilings. The central altar houses an image of St. Lucy, the patron saint, which attracts pilgrims on her feast day in December. The church suffered damage in earthquakes but was repaired through community donations.

Uploaded by

Dan Dan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

HISTORY OF ST.

LUCY VIRGIN MARTYR CHURCH

The majestic Sta. Lucia Church was built by Augustinian friars in 1586. It is
the only church in the whole Philippines with a dome look like that of the St.
Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Like the most Philippine churches, it is built of red
bricks called ladrillo. It is dominantly Romanesque in style as proven by the
rose window on the façade and its flying buttresses on both eastern and
western sides.
An air of medieval atmosphere is at once felt as soon as one enters the
atrium or the entrance court. The wide have which goes up to the central
altar is bisected by a transept. The eastern and western ends of the
transept are actually minor altars.
The image of St. Lucy, the patron saint of Sta. Lucia, is enshrined in the
central altar (altar mayor). But there were two images of St. Lucy – Saint
Lucy, the old woman (Sta. Lucia, Apo Baket). The former is said to have
come from all the way from Mexico and was brought here by Augustinian
missionaries. It is enthused in the western altar. The latter is the one placed
in the central altar, and it is believed to be miraculous. People from another
places flock to Sta. Lucia for a pilgrimage especially during the 13th day of
December, the feast day of Saint Lucy. The dress of the image is bedecked
with silver ornaments with the shapes of eyes, arms and legs. These were
pinned by devotees as a token of their gratitude for the ailments cured
miraculously by St. Lucy.
The interior of the church is well-lit because of the numerous arched
windows on both of the eastern and western walls with ionic columns
supporting the ceiling. The ceilings are painted with Biblical scenes like the
sacrifice of Isaac and the Annunciation. The painting on the ceiling of the
dome is an imitation of the Creation of Man painted by the Michelangelo on
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The dome was decorated originally with
stained glass windows but majority of these panes were broken through the
years.
There is a staircase right of the atrium. It leads to the Belfry and to the
second floor or a raised platform, where the choir used to stay during the
early times.
The belfry was toppled during the earthquake of 1990. It was repaired in
1991 during the term of Rev. Fr. Peregrino Pira and continued in 1993 by
Rev. Fr. Avelino Sipin as the parish priest. Fr. Sipin was also responsible
for the replacement of the red brick floor tiles with marble tiles. The people
of Sta. Lucia funded all the renovations and repairs done to this great relic
of the Spanish sojourn in this town.

Source: Ablang, Yolanda Suzima; Anthropological and Cultural History of Sta. Lucia (unpublished term
paper Submitted to Dr. Noemi A. Medina, PNU, taft, Manila, Summer, 1990). Other sources and
published articles were researched by Buenavista, Romeo, Domingo.

You might also like