By Antony Kuriakose
Velha Goa (Old Goa) has the prestige of having a number of churches that have been included in UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. Among these are the ruins of St Augustine Church, once the largest in Goa.
Today it is just a 400-year-old lonely tower retaining its original height of 46 meters (150 feet) overlooking the old city. It is a mere skeleton of the great church, which is now a heap of ruins covered by vegetation. Yet it is impressive. This high colossal four-storied arched belfry tower built of laterite once formed part of the facade of the church of St Augustine. The ruins of eight chapels, four altars and extensive convent with numerous cells may be seen below it. The portico and the tower are still present and look absolutely splendid despite being in ruins. On entering the ruins one can glimpse the grand retable of the high altar with its large gilt tabernacle sheltered within an arch through a screen of arched piers. Vestiges of most of these piers were visible until recently; they supported a spacious choir which could have accommodated a large number of Augustinian monks. The nave of the Church now lies open to the sky, under whose broken arches locals sometimes gather and talk. Covering the vast nave was a barrel vault, whose enormous weight unfortunately hastened its collapse. It was traditional to bury the dead from noble families inside the church itself, close to the sanctuary holding the altar and there are quite a number of graves covered with stone slabs carved with the coat of arms and details of the deceased.
As to its history, the Monte Santo (Holy Hill) at Velha Goa was the site for the monastery of the Augustinian order, attached to which was the enormous church of Nossa Senhora da Graca (Our Lady of Grace). When it was completed in the early years of the 17th century in 1602, this grand Church was recognised as one of the three great Augustinian churches in the Iberian world, the other two being the Basilica of the Escorial in Spain, St Vincente de Fora in Lisbon.
During construction, the high vault fell twice. However, the Italian architect would not give up. When built a third time, he and his only son stood under the vault and asked for a heavy cannon to be fired to test the stability of the structure. It did not fall until much later. Towards the south of the convent the Novitiate of the Augustine’s was an integral part of the convent, while the majestic ‘Collegio do Populo’ was for training younger brethrens. It was linked to the Novitiate by a bridge over the Rua dos Judeus (Street of the Jews).
In 1835, the church was abandoned as a result of the expulsion of the Augustinians from Goa by the authorities and the Portuguese government ordered its demolition. The bell of the church was removed to the Fort Aguada Light House initially (1841-1871) and in 1871 transferred to the Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Panaji. This functioning bell is second in size only to the Golden Bell of the Se Cathedral at Old Goa. It has an inscription and weighs about 2,250 kilograms.
After being given up by the Augustines, the church was used for missionary and charity work by the charitable institution of the Misericordia for quite a while. However, the buildings finally fell into neglect. This resulted in the collapse of the vault on September 8, 1842. As a direct result of all these occurrences the Goa Government appropriated the property and sold the materials of the remains of the church in 1843.
In 1846, the main vault of the church collapsed and the convent rapidly decayed. The facade collapsed on August 8 and 19, 1931 and whatever was left of the facade of the church including the 46 meters tall tower again fell in 1938. By this time, many of the valuable articles belonging to the religious complex had been either sold or lost, some being dispersed across other churches in Goa where they are still found today.
Somewhere beneath these crumbling stones was hidden the missing corpse of Queen Ketevan of Gerorgia. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has been looking for her grave for the last 15 years on the request of the Georgian government, for whom Queen Ketavan (now St Ketavan) is the patron saint.
In 1613, the Emperor of Persia Shah Abbas led an army to conquer the Georgian kingdom and he took Queen Ketevan prisoner. Ketevan, was martyred in 1624 after refusing to convert to Islam and marry her captor, who duly had her flesh torn off with red-hot tongs, garrotted her with a bow string and then, depending on the account, boiled her brains in a giant kettle. Her remains were recovered and hidden by Portuguese clerics in Persia, who then spirited it to Goa. According to historians, the queen’s right hand and right arm were buried in St Augustine church in Goa while other relics were buried in a Georgian Orthodox Church cathedral in Georgia. A team from Georgia and the Archaeological survey of India experts in a joint effort found the relics from under the window of the church in 2006. Since DNA checks are the final proof of the body recovered, it is being done under the auspices of the ASI.
What remains of the five storey tall tower is being conserved against all odds. In the 1990s the ASI started scientific clearance with two main objectives; to enlarge the area accessible to visitors, and to study the plan and layout of the church/convent. To understand the convent’s architectural remains a trench was laid and clearance initiated in this area. (MF)
