Sorsogon Cathedral (), officially known by its ecclesiastical name, the Saints Peter and Paul Parish Cathedral (), is a

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

cathedral A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...

Sorsogon City Sorsogon City, officially the City of Sorsogon (Southern Sorsogon language, Waray Sorsogon: ''Syudad san Sorsogon''; ; ), is a Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, component city and capital of the Provinces of the Philippines, pro ...

, capital of Sorsogon province,

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. The cathedral faces the Sorsogon Bay and is situated in the

city center A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely equivalent terms that exist in ...

of Sorsogon City. It is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sorsogon with

Saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

and

Paul Paul may refer to: People * Paul (given name), a given name, including a list of people * Paul (surname), a list of people * Paul the Apostle, an apostle who wrote many of the books of the New Testament * Ray Hildebrand, half of the singing duo ...

as primary

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

History

The spread of

Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

in the province of

Sorsogon Sorsogon, officially the Province of Sorsogon ( Bikol: ''Probinsya kan Sorsogon''; Waray: ''Probinsya han Sorsogon''; ), is a province in the Philippines located in the Bicol Region. It is the southernmost province in the island of Luzon and ...

begun in 1583 by the

Franciscans The Franciscans are a group of related organizations in the Catholic Church, founded or inspired by the Italian saint Francis of Assisi. They include three independent religious orders for men (the Order of Friars Minor being the largest conte ...

. In the year 1600 they established the first parish in Casiguran and Bacon and Bulusan we're its first visita. The parish mission of Bacon, now a Sorsogon district in the city's northern coast, was established in 1617 with Sorsogon and Dumanaog as its visitas. In 1628, Sorsogon, the present area in the city's southern coast, was made an independent parish under the patronage of

Saint Anthony of Padua Anthony of Padua, OFM, (; ; ) or Anthony of Lisbon (; ; ; born Fernando Martins de Bulhões; 15 August 1195 – 13 June 1231) was a Portuguese Catholic priest and member of the Order of Friars Minor. Anthony was born and raised by a wealth ...

. Fray Francisco San Diego was the first

parish priest A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

of Sorsogon which at the time had a

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

made of nipa and

bamboo Bamboos are a diverse group of mostly evergreen perennial plant, perennial flowering plants making up the subfamily (biology), subfamily Bambusoideae of the grass family Poaceae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family, in th ...

. Sorsogon then took Dumanaog as a visita which eventually became a parish of its own in 1641. In 1660, the first

stone In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...

of Sorsogon was inaugurated. Sorsogon was one of the settlements along the coast of Sorsogon Bay which fell into Moro raids in

Bicol region The Bicol Region, designated as Region V, is an administrative region of the Philippines. It comprises six Provinces of the Philippines, provinces, four on the Bicol Peninsula (the luzon#Southeastern Luzon, southeastern end of Luzon): Albay, Ca ...

in August 1754. Secular priests from the Diocese of Nueva Caceres took over the parish administration of Sorsogon in 1680 before the term of

Bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

Andres Gonzales Andres Gonzales (born May 16, 1983) is an American professional golfer. Professional career Gonzales has played on the Canadian Tour, Web.com Tour, and PGA Tour. He won the 2009 Saskatchewan Open on the Canadian Tour. He later won the 2012 So ...

. The Franciscan Recollects returned to manage the parish in 1768 with Fr. Ginez Antonio Fernandez as its

. In 1792, the titular of the parish became Saints

and

, replacing

. After 26 years, in 1794, the Recollects ceded the administration of the parish to the native clergy. An

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

on March 21, 1840, levelled the

which left 165 deaths, 15 of which were buried alive in the ruins. The said earthquake ravaged the town of Sorsogon which had tremors that lasted for 35 days. In 1864, Sorsogon was made an independent municipality under Albay province. Thirty years later, in 1894, the province of

was excised from Albay and was named after Sorsogon, the designated capital town. Fr. Jorge Barlin served as the

and

vicar forane A dean, in an ecclesiastical context, is a cleric holding certain positions of authority within a religious hierarchy. The title is used mainly in the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and many Lutheran denominations. A dean's assistant i ...

of Sorsogon from 1887 until 1903 when he was appointed as bishop of Nueva Caceres, and as the first Filipino bishop of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. The

of Sorsogon was declared as the

of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sorsogon when it was canonically founded on June 29, 1951,

feast of Saints Peter and Paul The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul or Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul is a liturgical feast in honor of the martyrdom in Rome of the apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, which is observed on 29 June. The celebration is of ancient Chri ...

. Teopisto Alberto was the diocese's first bishop. The

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

6.6 earthquake of July 2, 1954 destroyed the

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

of the cathedral. The said damage prompted Bishop Alberto in the same year to reconstruct the cathedral in

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half of the 19th century ...

architectural style. Under Bishop Arnulfo Arcilla, the cathedral's

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

was constructed in 1972.

Typhoon A typhoon is a tropical cyclone that develops between 180° and 100°E in the Northern Hemisphere and which produces sustained hurricane-force winds of at least . This region is referred to as the Northwestern Pacific Basin, accounting for a ...

s '' Milenyo'' and '' Reming'' in 2006 damaged the

which again prompted the then Bishop Arturo Bastes to reconstruct the cathedral in its current style. The finished cathedral was inaugurated in 2011 on the occasion of 60th anniversary of the Diocese of Sorsogon.

References

External links

* * Facebook pag

{{Roman Catholic Diocese of Sorsogon Sorsogon City Buildings and structures in Sorsogon Roman Catholic cathedrals in the Philippines Spanish Colonial architecture in the Philippines 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the Philippines Churches in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sorsogon