Travel Light

The church Magellan’s hat built

Around the world / Culture club / Show me the money / Why you believe / World Wide Web - 1 year ago - Ellen

We were at Sto. Nino Parish Church in Mactan to hear mass on a late Sunday afternoon. This is the first time I attended mass conducted in Cebuano dialect and saw young women in their ministry wear long veils like the very icons in the altar. We left with no idea what the entire one-hour sermon was all about. It felt like much being a foreigner in your own land. I hope they have English and Filipino versions during the day, and even Korean. This particular area in Mactan Island is a tourist belt.

So in between ho-hums, unimaginable boredom and missing church services at CCF, I managed to steal shots of the Sto. Nino Parish Church. The small church is right across two major roads leading to Cordova and Punta Engano. What’s amazing about this church is its unique architecture. The building was shaped like Magellan’s hat (I would have said Anakin Skywalker’s) and its glass panels depict the image of the Sto. Nino tinted with bright colors. It is no longer as backward as what a typical parish in the outskirts of a province should be, bamboo blinds and all. Cebu churches have actually come a long way to become one of the province’s heritage sites.