Details of the facade.

The Basilica Minore del Santo Niño is the first church and monastery to be established in the Philippines. It is also the center of devotion of the oldest Christian representation in the country of Jesus as an infant king.

When Spanish conqueror Miguel Lopez de Legazpi landed in Cebu to establish a settlement, one of his men found in an unscathed house a wooden statue of a child with European attributes. Believing that it was an image of the child Jesus left by the explorer Ferdinand Magellan decades earlier, Legazpi then ordered the construction of a church at the site where it was found so that it can be enshrined. Originally called as San Agustin Church, Pope Paul VI elevated it in 1965 to the rank of a basilica minore in honor of the Santo Niño de Cebu.

Mid-relieves of Augustinian saints Nicholas of Tolentine and Monica, mother of St. Augustine of Hippo.

The present-day church dates back to its construction in 1730 by Father Jose Bosqued. It was finished in 1739 during the time of Father Juan de Albarran. Prior to this period, three churches have been built; the first two were of light materials while the third was of bricks and stones. All past three churches were destroyed by fire and natural calamities.

The church and the monastery.

The church is made of cut-coral stones which were said to be quarried from Panay Island while wood was sourced from Talisay (Cebu) and Pitalo (Cebu). The church’s heavy construction is dubbed as “earthquake proof” and the design features an eclectic mix of influences. The facade for example blends Muslim, Romanesque and Neo-Classical features according to Augustinian historian Father Pedro Galende.

The church has a single three-level belfry attached to the northern end of the facade. At the south is a palatial two-level monastery with a courtyard in the interior. Right across the church is the contemporary “Pilgrim Center” built in the early-1990s to serve as an extension of the stone church, albeit physically separate. The pilgrim center also houses the Augustinian Province of Santo Niño de Cebu, one of the many geographical and administrative subdivisions of the Order of Saint Augustine.

The stunning main altar retablo of the basilica.

Aside from the 480-year old image of the Santo Nino, the church also has an exquisitely carved multi-level wooden altar screen or retablo which features niches that each contain a particular Augustinian saint or blessed. The church originally had four altar screens which included two on both sides of the transept but these were removed after the major renovation works which were conducted on the church for the 1965 celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Christianization of the Philippines. Gone too was an elaborately carved wooden pulpit and the 18th-century pipe organ. However, the wooden choir loft that features latticework carvings and the carved staircase at the monastery with newel posts that are each topped with Fu-Dogs have been remarkably preserved.

The old interior of the church (Photo courtesy of The Latin American Library, Tulane University, Richard E. Ahlborn Collection).

The church recently completed the restoration of its 1966 pipe organ which was installed by Jose Loinaz, a Spanish organ technician who settled in the Philippines. The organ itself was manufactured in Germany by the firm Laukhuff Orgelbau, Weikersheim.