A Mother’s Stuff

St. Paul Metropolitan Cathedral of Vigan City

As founded in the church’s marker, the original church was a chapel of wood and that erected in 1574 on orders of Juan de Salcedo, the conquistador and Founder of Villa Fernandina (now Vigan). Historian Benito Legarda writes that the “construction of the cathedral to replace the dilapidated church of San Pablo was authorized by the celebrated Governor Jose de Basco y Vargas in 1786, and the cornerstone was laid on January 31, 1790.” The church itself became a cathedral when the seat of the Diocese of Nueva Segovia was transferred from Lal-lo, Cagayan to Vigan in 1758. An imposing structure in the heart of Vigan, the church’s main door was flanked by two pairs of columns which rise to the second tier of the façade. A niche above the main door houses a statue of St. Paul. There is a three-story bell tower with a square base and a mini-dome at the top lies nearby.