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The great stone facade and the staircase leading up to
the destroyed St. Paul's Church is probably the most famous
sight in Macau.
The church was built in 1602 adjoining the Jesuit College
of St. Paul's, the first Western college in the Far East
created in 1594. After the expulsions of the Jesuits in
1762, the building was abandoned. A few decades later, the
building was used as an army barracks but in 1835, a fire
destroyed the building. Only the facade, the staircase and
a few portions of the walls survived.
The facade is crowned by the cross of Jerusalem and is divided
into four horizontal sections, topped with a pediment, and
nine vertical divisions which contain various symbols that
tell a story.
Restoration work carried out from 1990 to 1995 turned the
Ruins of St. Paul into a museum. The ruins are the emblem
of Macau and now offer visitors a new monument where they
can view the remains of the former Church and then visit
a Crypt where the relics of the Martyrs of Japan and Vietnam
rest, and a Museum of Sacred Art, located in the excavated
crypt of the church, where there are exhibits of paintings,
sculptures and liturgical objects from churches and monasteries
in the city.
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