The next day, after breakfast at the hotel, we were whisked off on a tour of the city’s 3 foremost religious shrines. We made our first stopover at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist (also called the Naga Metropolitan Cathedral). Originally founded in 1595 on the location of the market, the present Spanish Romanesque church, one of the largest in the country, was completed in 1843. Damaged by typhoons and the 1811 earthquake, it was restored in 1890. Its austere interior houses a Black Nazarene statue and some fine ecclesiastical silver in the sacristy.
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| Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist |
The church’s plain and massive, three-level façade has a semicircular arched main entrance, paired superpositioned columns, statued niches and a slightly curving end wall at the second level. It is topped by a triangular pediment with a centrally located clock. The levels of the massive, Renaissance-style bell towers on the flanks are marked by enclosing balustrades. The church has an austere interior, a Black Nazarene statue and some fine ecclesiastical silver in the sacristy.
The image of the Virgin of Peñafrancia is transferred and enthroned here until her feast day from the Basilica during the Translacion (the 2-km. ritual transfer of the Virgin, by the traditional all-male retinue). A novena is held during the Virgin’s stay at the cathedral.
Beside the cathedral is the Holy Rosary Minor Seminary where our media colleague Rick Alberto studied. Formerly the Seminario Conciliar de Nueva Caceres, it was founded in 1797, the first school for ecclesiastical and lay education in Southern Luzon. On September 1998, the cathedral’s old seminary building was declared a National Landmark by the National Historical Institute.
Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist: cor. of Elias Angeles and Paz Streets. Tel: (054) 473-1836 and 473-8418. Feast of St. John the Evangelist: December 27.