Santa Maria de Mayan Parish Church, commonly known as Itbayat Church, is a historic

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 ...

church in

Itbayat Itbayat, officially the Municipality of Itbayat, (; Ilocano: ''Ili ti Itbayat''; ), is a municipality in the province of Batanes, Philippines. In the 2020 census, it had a population of 3,128 people. Itbayat is the country's northernmost muni ...

Batanes Batanes, officially the Province of Batanes (; Ilocano: ''Probinsia ti Batanes''; , ), is an archipelagic province in the Philippines, administratively part of the Cagayan Valley region. It is the northernmost province in the Philippines, an ...

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 ...

. It is under the jurisdiction of the Territorial Prelature of Batanes.

History

The original structure of the Santa Maria de Mayan Church was made of wood. The original wooden church was built from 1853 to 1858 and was placed under the patronage of the

Immaculate Conception The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that the Virgin Mary was free of original sin from the moment of her conception. It is one of the four Mariology, Marian dogmas of the Catholic Church. Debated by medieval theologians, it was not def ...

. The current church building was built by the

Dominicans Dominicans () also known as Quisqueyans () are an ethnic group, ethno-nationality, national people, a people of shared ancestry and culture, who have ancestral roots in the Dominican Republic. The Dominican ethnic group was born out of a fusio ...

. The construction of the church building was started during the administration of Fr. Manuel Blasco in 1872. It was completed in 1888 and the church was blessed by Blasco. The church building sustained major damage during the Batanes earthquake of July 27, 2019 with its belfry tower falling off. The church was again severely damaged by Super typhoon Kong-rey (Leon) in October 2024.

References

External links

* {{Roman Catholic Territorial Prelature of Batanes Roman Catholic churches in Batanes Churches in the Roman Catholic Territorial Prelature of Batanes