From the Website of INQUIRER links: : https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1921837/holy-week-2024-heritage-churches-beckon-for-visita-iglesia
PNP ramps up Holy Week security, deploys 52,000 officers
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Holy Week 2024: Heritage churches beckon for ‘Visita Iglesia’
MANILA, Philippines—As Semana Santa will be observed next week, panata, or sacred vows, which Filipinos commit to and heed, will be highly visible again—reciting the Pasyon, practicing penitensya, and most of all, the Visita Iglesia.
The International Catholic Biblical Society, or SOBICAIN, said that the Visita Iglesia, or church visit, is a pious Holy Week tradition in the Philippines, which is the stronghold of Catholicism in Asia with over 85 million Roman Catholics.
Visita Iglesia is said to have been started by St. Philip Neri in the 16th-century and was brought by Spanish missionaries to the Philippines. It was, however, initially intended as a way to adore the Blessed Sacrament at the Altar of Repose on the evening of Holy Thursday.
But as years passed, the practice became a kind of pilgrimage, especially on the days of the Holy Week, with people visiting seven or 14 churches to reflect on Christ’s passion and death, and seek penance for the sins they have committed.
Interestingly, as SOBICAIN pointed out, the number of churches to visit, be it seven or 14, corresponds to the seven last words or seven sacred wounds of Jesus. Some decide to visit 14 churches to match the 14 Stations of the Cross.
With this, as most Filipinos now think of where to go this Holy Week, INQUIRER.net lists down some heritage churches in the Philippines—churches that are well known either for their great architecture or for being “home” to revered images to which miracles are attributed.
‘World heritage’
Back in 1993, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) declared four Baroque churches in the Philippines as “world heritage” for their outstanding “Philippine interpretation of the Baroque style.”
“[They] represent the fusion of European church design and construction with local materials and decorative motifs to form a new church-building tradition,” it said on its website.
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