Thousands throng St Paul’s Hill church for celebration

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MALACCA: Close to 3,000 Catholics from all over Malaysia and Singapore, including many local and outstation non-Christian devotees and pilgrims, thronged St. Paul’s Hill church ruins in the heart of Malacca Historic City to commemorate the feast of St. Francis Xavier.

Two mid-morning Eucharistic services presided by Frs. Bernard Wong, Michael Mannayagam, Moses Rayappan and Deacon Anthony Chua were conducted at a specially erected elevated altar at the rear of the saint’s empty tomb within the church sanctuary ruins.

The ruins stand on the site of a former chapel built in 1521 dedicated to ‘De Nossa Senyon de Oiteru’ (Our Lady of the Hill, in Portuguese).

Devotional: Pilgrims going up to the ruins of St. Paul’s Hill church.

The hilltop religious commemoration held on the last or first Sunday in November or December (closest to the actual feast date which falls on Dec 3), sees the 1845-built Church of St. Francis Xavier along Jalan Banda Kaba as principal organisers.

For Steven Ayaidurai, 72, among the many Catholics making the steep hilltop climb to partake in the religious rituals, coming to St Paul’s Hill for the Feast Day event is a pilgrimage undertaken faithfully annually for the past 25 years.

Now residing in Perth, since leaving his hometown in 1994 upon retiring from the then Malacca Municipal Town Council, he considers St. Francis Xavier as the patron saint of Malacca and has a special prayer devotion for this missionary priest born of a noble family in Navaree, Spain in 1505.

“It was through his intercession that I have received and still continue to gain God’s blessings following my wedding in 1963. Coming to the hill as long as I am able to make it, is my way of repaying the Almighty’s mercy” said Steven whose wife Christine passed away in Australia in 1997.

Described as the ‘Apostle of the East’ and ‘Patron of the Missions’, St Francis Xavier spent nearly 11 years of his missionary life in Asia making five visits to Malacca between September 1545 and May 1552.

History records that following the saint’s death on Sancian Island off mainland China in 1552, his body was temporarily laid at St. Paul’s Hill before being shipped to its final resting place at Goa’s Basilica Bom Jesus, in India. St. Paul’s Church now in ruins atop a hillock was regarded as the missionary headquarters of St. Francis Xavier who used Malacca as a base for his travels to Indonesia and the Far East including Japan.

Presently the St. Paul’s Hill complex, which was included in Unesco’sWorld Heritage List in October 1998, is a major landmark destination drawing tourists both local and overseas all the year round.

The Malacca Museums Corporation in 2000 undertook an extensive restoration and beautification works costing around RM1mil which involved the upgrading of footpaths, shoring up of weak points along specific locations surrounding the hill, landscaping and night time illumination.