Santo Niño Cathedral, commonly known as Calapan 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 ...

Calapan Calapan, officially the City of Calapan (), is a component city and the capital of the province of Oriental Mindoro, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 145,786 people making it the most populous in Oriental Mi ...

Oriental Mindoro Oriental Mindoro (), officially the Province of Oriental Mindoro (), is a province in the Philippines located on the island of Mindoro under Mimaropa region in Luzon, about southwest of Manila. The province is bordered by the Verde Island P ...

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 ...

, dedicated to the Santo Niño. It is the episcopal seat of the

Apostolic Vicariate of Calapan The Apostolic Vicariate of Calapan (Latin: ''Vicariatus Apostolicus Calapanensis'') is a Latin Church missionary jurisdiction or apostolic vicariate of the Catholic Church in Oriental Mindoro, Philippines. In 2010, 756,000 residents had been bapt ...

and is a marked historical structure by the

National Commission for Culture and the Arts The National Commission for Culture and the Arts of the Philippines (NCCA; , ) is the official government agency for culture in the Philippines. It is the overall policy making body, coordinating, and grants giving agency for the preservation, d ...

History

The church and

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

mission of

was founded in 1679 by the priest Diego de la Madre de Dios, an

Augustinian Recollect The Order of Augustinian Recollects (OAR) is a mendicant Catholic religious order of friars and nuns. It is a reformist offshoot from the Augustinian hermit friars and follows the same Rule of St. Augustine. They have also been known as the "D ...

. Under de la Madre de Dios, the church was fortified with stone walls. Due to frequent Moro raids in the

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

, two

watchtower A watchtower or guardtower (also spelt watch tower, guard tower) is a type of military/paramilitary or policiary tower used for guarding an area. Sometimes fortified, and armed with heavy weaponry, especially historically, the structures are ...

s and twenty

cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during th ...

s were also installed in the church and its environs. In another Moro raid on October 23, 1754, Andres de Jesus y Maria, then the

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 ...

, and many people taking refuge in the church, were taken as hostages and were brought to Mindanao. In August 1881, the church was burned, and was reconstructed in 1887. Revolutionists in 1898 prior to the Philippine-American War occupied the church. In 1936, the Apostolic Prefecture of Mindoro, then comprising the present-day provinces of Oriental Mindoro,

Occidental Mindoro Occidental Mindoro (), officially the Province of Occidental Mindoro ( or ''Lalawigan ng Occidental Mindoro''), is a province in the Philippines located in the Mimaropa region. The province occupies the western half of the island of Mindoro. I ...

and

Romblon Romblon (, , ), officially the Province of Romblon, is an archipelagic province of the Philippines located in the Mimaropa region. Its main components include Romblon, an archipelagic municipality of the same name that also serves as the provi ...

, was carved from the territories of the dioceses of Jaro and

Lipa Lipa or LIPA (Cyrillic: Липа) may refer to: Acronym *Liquid Isopropyl alcohol * League for Independent Political Action, a former American progressive political organization *Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, a performing arts school i ...

. Towards the end of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in 1945, the church this time was occupied by the Americans and was turned over the Filipinos in the same year. In 1951, the

apostolic prefecture An apostolic prefect or prefect apostolic is a priest who heads what is known as an apostolic prefecture, a 'pre-diocesan' missionary jurisdiction where the Catholic Church is not yet sufficiently developed to have it made a diocese. Although it ...

was elevated to the

. In 1962, the present cathedral was finished. The Calapan Vicariate subsequently lost territories to establish the

Diocese of Romblon The Roman Catholic Diocese of Romblon () is a diocese of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. A constituent of the Latin Church, it is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Capiz. Its titular patron is St. Joseph, spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mar ...

in 1974 and the

Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose in Mindoro The Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose in Mindoro is a Latin Church missionary jurisdiction or apostolic vicariate of the Catholic Church in the western part of Mindoro island in the Philippines. Its cathedra is within the Cathedral-Parish of St. J ...

in 1983.

Gallery

File:Calapan Church Side View.jpg, The cathedral's side entrances and parking area File:Santo Niño Cathedral in Calapan, Oriental Mindoro.jpg, Close-up of

breeze block A concrete block, also known as a cinder block in North American English, breeze block in British English, or concrete masonry unit (CMU), or by various other terms, is a standard-size rectangular block used in building construction. The u ...

-style features of the facade and 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 ...

References

External links

* * {{Facebook, stoninocathedral Roman Catholic churches in Oriental Mindoro Marked Historical Structures of the Philippines Spanish Colonial architecture in the Philippines Roman Catholic cathedrals in the Philippines 17th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the Philippines 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the Philippines 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the Philippines 20th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the Philippines Churches in the Roman Catholic Apostolic Vicariate of Calapan Jubilee churches in the Philippines