Macau Has the Ruins of St. Paul’s, and Also a Lesser-Known St. Joseph’s Seminary, Both World Heritage Sites but Little Known

When it comes to Macau tourism, many friends will instinctively think of the famous Ruins of St. Paul’s first, because it is so well-known that it almost serves as Macau’s tourism label, holding an irreplaceable status. However, as an ancient city with a long history, although Macau is not large in area, its culture and tourism can hardly be represented solely by the Ruins of St. Paul’s. The world-renowned gastronomic city, ancient churches, Western-style forts, the first European lighthouse along the coast of China, the oldest European theater in China, a large number of residential buildings combining Chinese and Western styles, along with adjacent squares and streets, constitute the ‘Historic Centre of Macau,’ which has long been listed as a World Heritage site.

The Ruins of St. Paul’s is a World Heritage site, but Macau’s World Heritage goes far beyond it. It includes multiple square spaces such as Barra Square, Lilau Square, St. Augustine’s Square, Senado Square, Cathedral Square, St. Dominic’s Square, Company of Jesus Square, Camões Square, and more than twenty historical buildings of Chinese and Western styles, including A-Ma Temple, Moorish Barracks, Mandarin’s House, St. Lawrence’s Church, St. Joseph’s Seminary and Church, Dom Pedro V Theatre, Ho Tung Library, St. Augustine’s Church, Leal Senado Building, Sam Kai Vui Kun (Kuan Tai Temple), Holy House of Mercy, Cathedral (Se Cathedral), Lou Kau Mansion, St. Dominic’s Church, Ruins of St. Paul’s, Na Tcha Temple, Section of the Old City Walls, Mount Fortress, St. Anthony’s Church, Casa Garden, Protestant Cemetery, and Guia Fortress. The Ruins of St. Paul’s is merely one of these twenty-five.

The Historic Centre of Macau preserves the historical essence of over four hundred years of cultural exchange between China and the West. It is the oldest, largest, best-preserved, and most concentrated historical district in China, featuring predominantly Western architecture with harmonious Chinese and Western elements. It is also an important testimony to the spread of Western religious culture in China and the Far East, and a crystallization of over four centuries of exchange, complementarity, and coexistence between Chinese and Western cultures.

Strolling through the historic old town of Macau, there are many ancient buildings like the Ruins of St. Paul’s. One such example is the St. Joseph’s Seminary, which I will introduce in this article. The St. Joseph’s Seminary was founded in 1728 by the Jesuits. Over more than two hundred years of schooling, the seminary trained many talents for the Church in China and Southeast Asia, earning the nickname ‘Shaolin Temple of Macau Catholicism’ among the older generation of Macau locals.

Adjacent to the St. Joseph’s Seminary is the St. Joseph’s Seminary Church, whose construction began in 1746 and took twelve years to complete. Its scale is second only to the Church of St. Paul (the predecessor of today’s Ruins of St. Paul’s), and thus locals call it ‘San Ba Zai’ or ‘Little St. Paul’s.’ Inside the church, there is a foundation stone and a commemorative copper plaque recording the date and personnel involved in its construction. On the back of the copper plaque, there is a line of Chinese characters: ‘The 26th day of the 8th month of the 11th year of Qianlong’ (October 1, 1746).

The St. Joseph’s Seminary mainly consists of the seminary building and the church. It is a monastery with both internal and external gardens, surrounded by walls to separate it from the outside. The main entrance to the seminary is on San Ba Zai Street. The entrance and the church entrance are aligned on the same axis. Like the Ruins of St. Paul’s, there is a long granite staircase after the entrance, with the seminary located at the top. The entrance to the seminary building is on the right side of the church.

According to the accompanying staff, the seminary building was originally two stories high and later extended to three stories. The building is primarily made of green bricks, with thick walls built on granite foundations. The rooms on each floor are generally connected by long and wide corridors; one longitudinal corridor is 3.8 meters wide and 80 meters long. The doors and windows are semi-circular arched. Except for the ground floor, which is paved with granite or large bricks, the upper floors are all paved with teak wood floors, with wooden ceilings. The roof of the building is a Chinese-style tiled roof, with fir beams directly placed on the walls. The overall design of the building is simple and flexible, with few decorative lines.

In contrast to the plain and simple style of the seminary building, the church is known for its gorgeous and extravagant Baroque architecture. The church has three front entrances. The two side entrances lead to side altars, beyond which is the main nave. The central entrance leads directly to the main nave, which is laid out in a Latin cross plan, with a long axis of 27 meters and a short axis of 16 meters. The two ends of the long axis are the entrance vestibule and the main altar. The main altar enshrines a statue of St. Joseph, designed in Baroque style with many decorations. Particularly characteristic are two sets of four spiral columns wrapped in gold leaf, with broken pediment capitals as finials.

Inside the St. Joseph’s Seminary Church, there is a relic of the forearm bone of St. Francis Xavier, venerated by the faithful. Its significance is somewhat like Buddhist relics. Because St. Francis Xavier was the first Jesuit missionary to the Far East, and he died on Shangchuan Island near Macau in 1552. He is later honored as the Apostle of the East. This relic is considered an important artifact of the Eastern Catholic Church (as shown in the middle of the picture above).

The St. Joseph’s Seminary Church consists of a Roman dome space supported by four pendentives. The dome has a diameter of about 12.5 meters and a height of 19 meters. It features three rings of 16 windows each; the highest ring is merely symbolic window frames, while the other two rings provide ventilation and lighting. The interior of the dome is white, with a yellow Jesuit emblem in the center.

Since its completion, the St. Joseph’s Seminary has weathered centuries of wind and rain, experiencing many major events and upheavals, yet it still stands. According to the staff, the Jesuits were first expelled from Macau in 1762 for twenty years, during which the seminary was reduced to an orphanage. In 1783, Bishop Hilário de Santa Rosa invited several priests to Macau to reopen the seminary. Today, only the front façade remains of the Ruins of St. Paul’s, while the equally historic St. Joseph’s Seminary remains well-preserved. Both are integral parts of the World Heritage site, so its significance is in no way inferior to the Ruins of St. Paul’s. If you travel to Macau next time, be sure to take the opportunity to visit it. I believe it will surely not disappoint you.