Ruins of Saint Paul's

Ruins of Saint Paul's
Type	Ruins
Location	Santo António, Macau
Coordinates	22°11′51″N 113°32′26″E
Height	26 metres
Formed	Granite masonry bronze
Founder	Alessandro Valignano SJ
Built	1637–1640
Built for	Catholic Church
Original use	Catholic church
Restored	1995
Architectural style(s)	Baroque
Governing body	Macau Cultural Bureau
Website	Official website

Ruins of Saint Paul's
Chinese name
Chinese	大三巴牌坊
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Dàsānbā Páifāng Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization daaih sāam bā pàaihfōng Jyutping daai6 saam1 baa1 paai4 fong1
Portuguese name
Portuguese	Ruínas de São Paulo

The Ruins of Saint Paul's (Chinese: 大三巴牌坊; Portuguese: Ruínas de São Paulo) are the remnants of a 17th-century Catholic religious complex in Santo António, Macau. They include what was originally St. Paul's College and the Church of St. Paul (Igreja de São Paulo), also known as "Mater Dei", a 17th-century Portuguese church dedicated to Saint Paul the Apostle. Today, the ruins are one of Macau's best-known landmarks and one of the Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World. In 2005, they were officially listed as part of the Historic Centre of Macau, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

History

Built from 1602 to 1640 by the Jesuits, during the time in which Portugal and Spain were under the same crown, the church was one of the largest Catholic churches in Asia at the time. It was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon on 26 January 1835. The Fortaleza do Monte overlooks the ruin.

Virgin Mary stepping on a seven-headed hydra.

The ruins now consist of the stone frontispiece. The façade sits on a small hill, with 68 stone steps leading up to it.

The façade is shaped like a retable and themed around the Assumption of Mary. Likely influenced by Japanese Christian craftsmen who worked on it, the ruins of St. Paul's include carvings with heterodox images that draw from Asian traditions, including Mary stepping on a seven-headed hydra, described in accompanying Chinese characters as "Holy Mother tramples the heads of the dragon". The base of the structure has six Chinese guardian lions carved from stone.

The Japanese Christian craftsmen who worked on St. Paul's were converted by Jesuits and expelled from Japan in 1587 when Toyotomi Hideyoshi banned Christianity.

The remains of around 250 Korean and Japanese slaves from the Portuguese slave trade are buried near the church.

Conservation

Resisting calls for the dangerously leaning structure to be demolished, from 1990 to 1995, the ruins were excavated under the auspices of the Instituto Cultural de Macau to study its historic past. The crypt and the foundations were uncovered, revealing the architectural plan of the building. Numerous religious artifacts were also found together with the relics of the Chinese Christian martyrs and the monastic clergy, including the founder of the Jesuit college in Macau, Father Alessandro Valignano.

The ruins were restored by the Macanese government into a museum, and the façade is now buttressed with concrete and steel in a way which preserves the aesthetic integrity of the façade. There was once a steel stairway that allowed tourists to climb up to the top of the façade from the rear, but due to concerns for the preservation of the church, tourists are no longer allowed to climb up.

See also

• Museum of Sacred Art and Crypt
• Religion in Macau
• List of Jesuit sites

References

• Media related to Ruins of St. Paul's at Wikimedia Commons
• 192183185 Ruins of Saint Paul's on OpenStreetMap