Replica of the ruins of St. Paul's cathedral of Macao


All that remains of the greatest of Macao's churches is its magnificent stone facade.
Built in 1602 adjoining the Jesuit College of St. Paul's, it was the first Western college in the Far East where missionaries such as Matteo Ricci and Adam Schall studied Chinese before serving at the Ming Court in Beijing as astronomers and mathematicians. After the expulsion of the Jesuits, the college was used as army barracks and in 1835 a fire started in the kitchens that destroyed the college and the body of the church. The surviving facade rises in 4 colonnaded tiers, and is covered with carvings and statues which eloquently illustrate the early days of the Church in Asia. In the nineties restoration work turned the back side of the ruins into a museum. The ruins are regarded as the symbol of Macau and it´s natural size replica was exhibited in the Portuguese pavilion at the world exhibition Expo98 in Lisbon. Now it found a final destiny as the entrance of a cultural centre called precisely Pavilion of Macao in the city of Loures in the north periphery of Lisbon.

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