UNESCO Listed Seven Churches and Convents of Old Goa in 1986, Among Them the Basilica of Bom Jesus, Consecrated in 1605 and Home to the Tomb of St Francis Xavier, and the Sé Cathedral

UNESCO inscribed the Churches and Convents of Goa on the World Heritage List in 1986, on criteria (ii), (iv) and (vi). The listing covers seven monuments in Old Goa, the former capital of the Portuguese Indies, about 10 km east of the state capital Panaji, whose government, economy and people are covered in tuput’s Goa at a glance. The best known is the Basilica of Bom Jesus, which holds the tomb of St Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary whose relics are shown to the public once every ten years.

The other six are the Sé Cathedral, the Church and Convent of St Francis of Assisi, the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary, the Chapel of St Catherine, the Church of St Augustine and the Chapel of St Cajetan. UNESCO’s text calls the group the “Rome of the Orient”. Under criterion (ii) it says the monuments spread Manueline (a Portuguese late Gothic style), Mannerist and Baroque forms to the countries of Asia where Catholic missions were set up.

Seven monuments left from sixty churches

India sent the nomination on 15 October 1982. In 1983 the World Heritage Committee put it off, along with several other nominations including Hampi, until it received more information. ICOMOS, the Committee’s advisory body on monuments, later wrote that the reason for Goa was a missing definition of how the site of Velha Goa (Old Goa) would be protected.

A new nomination followed on 8 January 1986, with a map that marked the protected areas and the zones where building would be allowed. ICOMOS reported that of 60 churches inventoried in the 18th century, before the city was abandoned, seven major examples survive. It recommended inscription, and the Committee decided at its 10th session in 1986 to list the property.

ICOMOS also noted in 1986 that the archaeological office responsible for Goa sat at Aurangabad, 500 km away. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) now has a Goa Circle of its own, and its state-wise list gives that circle 21 centrally protected monuments.

A city taken in 1510 and rebuilt in stone

Britannica’s entry on Afonso de Albuquerque says he occupied Goa, then ruled by Muslim princes, in March 1510, was forced out of the citadel by a Muslim army in May, and took it by assault in November, when the defenders were put to the sword. A marble slab placed on the Rosary church in 1931 by the Archaeological Committee of Goa reads, according to the Ministry of Tourism: “From this height, Afonso de Albuquerque watched the re-conquest of Goa on 25/11/1510.” Portuguese rule ended in December 1961, a story told in tuput’s account of how Goa was taken into India.

UNESCO dates the Chapel of St Catherine to 1510 and says Pope Paul III raised it to cathedral status in 1534. Franciscan friars came in 1517, according to the Ministry of Tourism’s story built from ASI material. UNESCO lists the other orders that arrived and built chapels, churches, convents and cathedrals: Carmelites, Augustinians, Dominicans, Jesuits and Theatines. ICOMOS puts the city’s population at more than 200,000 at the start of the 17th century, and Britannica gives 200,000 for 1565.

Dates for the decline differ. ICOMOS says the city was abandoned towards 1760 because of malaria, and that the capital moved to Nova Goa, on the site of Panjim. In Britannica’s entry on the basilica, epidemics of malaria and cholera hit the city in the 17th century, after which it was largely abandoned.

The Basilica of Bom Jesus, 1594 to 1605

Britannica says construction of the basilica began in 1594 and that it was consecrated in 1605. Ministry of Tourism material gives 24 November 1594 for the foundation stone and 15 May 1605 for the consecration by the Archbishop of Goa. Basilica status came in 1946.

Cruciform in plan, the church has, in Britannica’s description, a facade that combines Ionic, Doric, Corinthian and composite styles, with three entrances below three rectangular windows, three smaller round windows and a carved central gable. In ASI’s own report to UNESCO the facade shows the Classical Order, the column rules taken from ancient Greece and Rome. For ICOMOS the building was the principal Jesuit convent of the Indies. Inside, the ministry says, the main altar is 54 feet high and 30 feet wide, with pillars of basalt from Bassein, about 300 km away. Mass is said there daily and visitors are welcome, Britannica says.

Francis Xavier’s tomb and the exposition every ten years

Britannica says Francis Xavier landed in Goa on 6 May 1542. He died of fever on 3 December 1552 on Sancian island, now Shangchuan, off the Chinese coast, and the Church canonised him on 12 March 1622. The same entry adds that Xavier was involved in setting up the Goa Inquisition, which punished converts accused of still practising Hinduism or other religions.

Catholic Connect, the website of the 2024 exposition, says the body was exhumed in February 1553 and taken to Malacca, and that in December 1553 the decision was made to move it to Goa. According to the academic Encyclopaedia of Portuguese Expansion, it was received in Goa on 15 March 1554 with the Archbishop and the Viceroy present. On arrival it was said to be “as fresh as the day it was buried”, Britannica notes, while the Catholic News Agency describes the remains today as partially incorrupt.

Goan silversmiths made the silver casket in 1636 and 1637, and it was installed on 2 December 1637, the Encyclopaedia says. Thirty-two plates on it show scenes from the saint’s life. Beneath it stands a monument of Florentine marble and bronze. Britannica says Grand Duke Cosimo III of Tuscany gave it, that Giovanni Battista Foggini carved it, and that it was begun in 1689 and put up in 1698. Another account, in UNESCO’s text, has it commissioned in 1665 by Grand Duke Ferdinand II of Tuscany, and names Foggini for the bronze work. Criterion (vi) rests on the tomb, which UNESCO calls a symbol of the influence of the Catholic religion in the Asian world in the modern period.

Catholic Connect says the relics lie in a glass container and that Xavier’s right arm is kept separately at the Church of the Gesù in Rome. Locals call him “Goencho Saib”, meaning protector of Goa, the Catholic News Agency reports.

Forty-five days, from 21 November 2024 to 5 January 2025, made up the 18th exposition. The relics were carried from the basilica to the Sé Cathedral on an electric carriage, and the Catholic News Agency counted at least 12,000 people on opening day. Veneration ran daily from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the programme set a procession on 5 January to return the relics to the basilica. The 17th exposition was held in 2014.

The Sé, the Franciscan convent and the Rosary church

Britannica says the Sé Cathedral is dedicated to St Catherine of Alexandria. The ministry’s page says it is the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman, that work began in 1562 and ended in 1619, that it was consecrated in 1640 and that the main altars were finished in 1652. UNESCO gives 1652 as the date and describes a Tuscan exterior with Classical orders. Corinthian columns at the portals, a raised platform with steps to the entrance and a barrel vault over the nave are in ASI’s report. One of the two towers fell in 1776 and was never rebuilt, the ministry says, and the bells include the Golden Bell.

For the Church and Convent of St Francis of Assisi, UNESCO gives 1517, rebuilt in 1521 and 1661, with Manueline, Gothic and Baroque elements. Google Arts & Culture, in a story built from ASI’s virtual tour, says eight Franciscan friars founded it in 1517, that the church was consecrated in 1602 and that the present building dates from 1661. That story describes a plain exterior with a Manueline portal and a Baroque interior, a nave with three chapels on each side, and wooden panels showing the life of St Francis. An ASI museum has occupied the convent since 1964, with paintings, sculptures and other objects on Goa’s history. No religious services are held in the church, the ministry says.

Above the Mandovi river and Divar island, on Monte Santo hill, stands the Church of Our Lady of the Rosary. UNESCO gives 1549 and calls it the earliest surviving church in the Manueline style, and ASI’s report calls it a solitary example of that style. Ministry material says it is built of laterite, plastered with lime, with Manueline rope-twist carving, two towers and a baptismal font cut from one slab of granite, and that tradition links it to a vow made by Albuquerque.

Laterite, lime and an Indo-Portuguese style

ICOMOS describes the monuments as built of laterite blocks (a soft red stone) covered with limestone mortar that contains broken shells. In UNESCO’s words the styles followed what was in fashion in Europe but were adapted to local conditions with local materials and objects, and the result is the root of an Indo-Portuguese style. Builders looked to Italian architects, some of whom had come to Goa, says ASI’s report. UNESCO dates the Chapel of St Cajetan to 1661 and says it is modelled on the original design of St Peter’s in Rome.

One material is described differently. Ministry material says the Bom Jesus facade is black granite and that it is the only church in the state with an unplastered exterior. ICOMOS, writing of the monuments as a group, gives laterite under lime mortar.

UNESCO dates the Church of St Augustine to 1602 and says only one-third of its bell tower stands. ICOMOS calls the tower the only remains of a convent built in 1572. Excavation, conservation in place and the re-fixing of azulejos (painted tiles) at the site have helped the ruins, UNESCO says, and the finds include relics of St Ketevan of Georgia.

Who protects them

In Old Goa stand 14 of the 21 entries on the ASI’s Goa list, including all seven UNESCO monuments, the Arch of the Viceroy, the Arch of Adil Shah’s Palace and the Largo (square) of St Francis Xavier. According to UNESCO’s statement, the 1958 Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, its 1959 rules and later amendments bar building and mining within 100 m of a protected site and regulate it within 200 m. Planning rules of the Goa government from 1989 and 2000 add conservation zones, including Old Goa, overseen by a Conservation Committee. Sé Old Goa’s panchayat (village council) takes part in management. Worship continues too, with services, weddings, funerals and the feast of Francis Xavier all listed by UNESCO. The Portuguese fort and church at Diu, a different territory with its own ASI protection, are covered in tuput’s Diu island article.

No World Heritage management plan exists and ASI manages the property, UNESCO’s statement says, and it names weathering, damp rising through the walls and termites in the wooden carvings as the problems for ASI’s annual work plan. In 1999 the Committee’s Bureau noted the conservation effort and asked for a thorough review of each monument’s needs, a site plan that links the monuments to the old town, and care in road building. Damp-damaged wooden panels at the Sé, the basilica and St Francis of Assisi were singled out.

India’s December 2002 report to UNESCO, signed by the Director General of the ASI, records a dispute over ownership between the ASI and the Archdiocese of Goa, Daman and Diu, with a writ petition at the argument stage in the district court. It gives no outcome. Britannica says a restoration of the silver casket was completed in 2021.