When Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Goa for the Portuguese Crown in 1510, he set in motion one of the most dramatic religious transformations in Asian history. Within a generation, churches were rising on the sites of Hindu temples, Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries were learning the local languages, and a new Christian community was taking root that would survive — and flourish — for five centuries.
Old Goa and the Basilica of Bom Jesus
The city of Old Goa, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, contains the most concentrated collection of Baroque Christian architecture in Asia. The Basilica of Bom Jesus — begun in 1594 and consecrated in 1605 — houses the mortal remains of St Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary who evangelised India, Japan, and much of Asia in the 16th century. His body, found incorrupt at his death in 1552, remains one of the most venerated relics in the Catholic world.
The Exposition of St Francis Xavier — when his body is displayed for public veneration — is held every ten years or so and draws millions of pilgrims from across India and beyond. The last Exposition was in 2024. Even between Expositions, pilgrims come to venerate the silver casket in the Bom Jesus Basilica throughout the year.
The Se Cathedral
Across the road, the Se Cathedral (Cathedral of St Catherine) is the largest church in Asia. Built to mark the Portuguese victory over the Muslim Sultan on St Catherine’s Day (25 November), it was consecrated in 1640 and remains one of the architectural wonders of the Christian East. Its massive nave, gilded altarpieces, and the famous ‘Golden Bell’ — the largest bell in Asia — speak of a community that once commanded the trade routes of the Indian Ocean.
A Living Catholic Culture
Goan Catholicism is not merely a Portuguese import — it has been thoroughly inculturated. Konkani, the local language, is used in the liturgy; the music of the Goan Mass incorporates local melodic traditions; and the feasts of the saints are celebrated with a colour and popular devotion that recalls the Christianity of southern Europe, rather than the more reserved forms that colonialism sometimes produced elsewhere in Asia.
Churches Beyond Old Goa
Beyond Old Goa, the state is dotted with remarkable churches: Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Panjim (photographed more than any other Goan building), the Church of Mae de Deus in Saligao, the Chapel of Our Lady of Remedios in Colvale, and dozens of village churches that serve communities whose Christianity goes back fifteen or twenty generations.
For the Christian traveller, Goa offers something rare: an encounter with a living Asian Catholic culture that has its own genius, its own music, its own food, and its own way of being Christian — shaped by Portuguese mission, indigenous tradition, and five centuries of faithful life.
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"For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."
Matthew 18:20