The oldest church at Old Goa is The Chapel of St. Catherine. It stands the place where once stood a mosque, and is located in the same compound as the Se Cathedral and the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. The small chapel is the first ecclesiastical shape to be constructed in Goa and is of historic significance. The construction of the chapel marked the introduction of Catholicism, no longer solely in Goa, but in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and different locations in the East.
St. Catherine’s Chapel located in Old Goa was the first ever Christian ecclesiastical shape built in Goa. The dimension of the chapel may be small; however, site visitors may also now not come out of this oldest chapel besides being impressed by means of its magnificence and grandeur.
It was the Portuguese ‘governador’ Afonso de Albuquerque who had built it originally in 1510 and dedicated it to St. Catherine as an honour because it was on her feast day (November 25, 1510) he came out victorious in his battle against the local Muslim ruler Adhil Shah of Bijapur Sulnanate and recaptured Goa from him. During the heyday of Adil Shah, there stood a mosque from where Afonso de Albuquerque and his army entered the city. The mosque is gone now and there are remnants of the old fort of Adil Shah just across the Chapel in old Goa. Albuquerque had the mosque demolished on November 25, 1510 and in that place built a modest Chapel with mud, palm leaves, etc to serve the Christian community there temporarily.
Governor George Cabral expanded it in 1550 and later in 1952 rebuilt it with laterite blocks with lime mortar. It was partially plastered with lime. And the fusion of white lime and the brown colour of the laterite adds extra beauty to this Chapel. It is perhaps the second or the third oldest Christian structures in entire Asia then. With a plain interior and one altar, it has a tower on either side of the facade. The Chapel has rectangular window panes of the Old Portuguese style dressed in mica shells. Close to it stands ‘The Church of St. Francis of Assisi’. The oldest church at Old Goa is not functional now, from historical perspective, its significance goes back to the early years of the Portuguese rule in the Indian subcontinent. Gov. George Cabral, installed an inscribed slab in Portuguese meaning: “Here on this spot and by door entered the Governor Afonso de Albuquerque reconquered this city from the Moors (Sultan Adil Shah) on the day dedicated to St. Catherine in the year 1510 in whose honour and memory the Governor Jorge Cabral raised this house in the year 1550.”
It was from here the central governing body of the Catholic authorities controlled the religious activities in the Portuguese colonies in the East Indies. You may say that Goa was the major Catholic seat of power east of the Suez. In the 18th century, there were as many as sixty churches and, of them, only seven have survived, the rest fell into ruin. In the later period, their power diminished as the British became a major colonial power in India.
The oldest church at Old Goa is being visited by lots of tourists. And is the legacy of early catholic history in India and also the beginning of Portuguese rule in the entire region of Goa. Well-connected by train and road, old Goa is a major tourist destination for the foreigners because there are countless beaches in this small state. Panaji, the capital of the state is close-by and has nice lodges for accommodation.
