Medieval Saints Spain Brought to the Philippines

 

The Martyrdom Of Saint Sebastian. ca 1472. Staatliche Sammlung. Munich


It took a millennia before much of Western Europe would claim that the polytheist Graeco-Roman religion was finally supplanted in the big part of the region by a different kind of religiosity. One that put man at the center of the cosmos with a one God in communion with the wretchedness of man, a divinity that suffered from humanity -- Jesus Christ as the incarnated son of God, as a branch of the new faith claimed.


Yet the new faith could not get rid of itself with a semi cult belief in what many claims as heroes of the church -- Individuals labeled now as saints, said to have possessed divine powers, putting humans in action, to heal, and to convert in the name of the Christ. Most were the early martyrs and movers of the church yet others claim they were the equivalent demigods seen in the Graeco-Roman religion.

Like the old city-state of Hellas (Greece), these saints were venerated by communities and cities calling them "patron" protectors, and benefactors, as what the Greek myth relay of who the goddess Athena was to Athens or Jupiter to ancient Rome.

When Spain brought Christianity to the country, there was this availability or choices from arrays of medieval saints to act as patron to a "reduccion", or a mission -- A new community of Christians in the tropics?

It became a prerogative that the patron must possess the quality or character close to the old animistic belief of the natives: Like Santa Marta (St. Margaret) standing on the head of the crocodile -- The crocodile which happened to be a venerated animal in pre-Hispanic culture. San Roque the saints for plague perhaps to supplant the old culture of healings, albularyos, and hilots etc. The adoration of Santiago (the Apostle James) for example was mostly centered in the story of him having helped the Christian knights in their battle against the Moors, not on the story of him having been one of the companions of Christ. A clear representation of the Conquistadores credence on removing Muslim power in places like Maynila.

The Conquistadores who entered Pasig River via the palisade of the once Borneo -dominated community in the 1570s was led by a Basque with men from his region who settled in Nueva Espana. In the mapping of the new churches and visitas in the Pasig River- Laguna Bay area, they assigned not only one but a couple communities under the protection of the soldier saint, San Sebastian, also the patron of archers. 

It is interesting to note that Maynila was conquered with the help of some hundreds of Bisayan archers.


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