A look inside San Agustin church is a look into the grandeur of a bygone era as well as the power that the Catholic church wielded during the Spanish colonial years. One is only awed with amazement gazing at these ornate and fabulous richness and artistry.
Rich hammered silver decorate the lower portion of the altar mayor or main altar. Impressive trompe l’oeil (French for “fools the eye”) painted on the walls and cielings, then a rage in Victorian Europe.
Gilded and ornate baroque altars complement the neoclassical altars. An …

San Agustin Church in the Agustinian monastery complex in Intramuros is undeniably, the mother of all churches being the oldest in the country despite claims from other places. Constructed from 1587 - 1607, it has survived earthquakes, typhoons, the British Invasion, the Philippine Revolution and World War II, which, was the only building left standing in Intramuros.
Built by the architect Juan Macias, it is the fourth church to be built. Made of wood and light materials, the first church was destroyed in 1574 by the Chinese …

The religious Order of St. Augustine or the Augustinians, was the first Catholic missionary order to reach the Philippines in 1565 via the expedition led by Adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi guided by the famed navigator and Augustinian friar Andres de Urdaneta. On 31 December 1575, They established the Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus in the Philippines four years after Legazpi established Manila as the capital of the then new Spanish settlement.
The order is credited with having established and Christianized the most number of natives during …

The simbahan and its related structures are not always permanent. There are many factors that have caused its destruction, abandonment and left to ruin. In the course of a town’s life, populations rise and fall as what happened in Calavite, Mindoro where the constant Muslim slave raids greatly decimated the populace.
Plagues and diseases ravage settlements and are abandoned. Volcanoes erupt thereby forcing villagers to transfer locations like what happened in Taal, Batangas where the town and the church have been relocated several times or, as popularly known, the Cagsawa …

Strictly speaking, conventos refer to houses for a religious group like nuns and monks but here in the country, it has evolved to mean a parish house or rectory. A residence of the parish priest, it is originally called a casa parroquial. Generally, it is attached to the simbahan either in line with the façade or at the back, or separated from the church like the one from Sibonga, Cebu (pictured above). In some cases like the one in Alburquerque, Bohol, the convento is connected to the church by …

Conquest and colonization of the archipelago was not an easy task for the ruling Spaniards as they have made not a few enemies who were intent of sabotaging their efforts. Not only are the enemies limited within the country but outside powers like other European colonizers were lusting to expand as well. To cite a few:

hostile tribes who refused Spanish rule like the Caraga of Surigao and some mountain tribes in Cagayan have to be fought off or prevented from attacking the established settlements and towns
with the rise to …

The idea of burying one’s dead and the attendant rites and rituals are not new to pre-hispanic Filipinos as there were already burial practices in place before the coming of the Spaniards. The remains were usually located in caves or cliffs. When Catholicism was introduced, it was not hard for the natives to accept the introduced system which was now done in one place, the cemetery.
The camposanto or cemetery was, of course, a given in the simbahan complex and in the early part of the Spanish colonization era, these …

Simbahan. What originated as a word connoting a place of adoration, a temporary structure or refurbishment made in honor of anitos, (lesser deities), during feasts in pre-Hispanic Philippines has, with the conversion of its inhabitants to Christianity during the Spanish colonization period, come to mean a permanent place of worship, a church.