TRAVEL: Anini-y Church Antique Philippines



As I've shared beforehand, we spent the holy week (springbreak to some) in Antique, a province included among the Panay Islands of Visayas. The Philippines, which is an archipelago composed of 7,101 islands is basically divided into three major group of provinces: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. The capital of our country is found in Luzon. If our archipelago were a man, Luzon's the head and Visayas is the mid-section. Visayas is a cluster of islands so there's a lot of beaches and bodies of water on that region--but beyond these grand gestures of nature, Visayas is actually composed of very old provinces... so old that they have most of our Spanish Colonial treasures. 

The Philippines, which became a colony of Spain for about 300 years, has a vast number of old basilicas or churches! Here's one of the few old churches I got to photograph while I was in Antique and Ilo-Ilo. Below are pictures of the Anini-y Church. By the way, you read Anini-y as a-knee-knee-eee :)


As expected, it has a high bell tower. It is said that back in the days, the power of the Church is defined by the range of the bells. As long as you hear the Church bells, you are under its authority. It is also for this reason why it is understood that a city is zoned with the Church in the middle. The closer your are to the Church, the more powerful your family is.

So nice because the Church even has its own Spanish Colonial house beside it. I'm assuming it's where the priests reside. I was unable to photograph, but there was a Spanish priest talking to a "native Antiqueno" when we visited the Anini-y Church.

What a beautiful tree.

The power of religion defined our country, our nation and our people.

How about yours?

Would you like a translation?

If you'd like to "visit" another old church, please click this link.

K

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Comments

  1. The churches are very beautiful.

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  2. "The closer your are to the Church, the more powerful your family is." Uh-huh. That's about right, almost universally, figuratively and literally. There are so many themes in this post, you could get yourself into quite a lengthy discussion. I'm enjoying learning about the Philippines through your posts though!

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    1. I think when I took up basic Philippine History in college, what I truly enjoyed was the Spanish colonial period because it was just sooo long (300yrs!!) and so rich! I mean, Philippines is the only remaining Catholic country in Asia! So that makes the Spaniard's effort in colonizing us quite fruitful in a sense. Frankly, I do accept the fact that however you look at it, being colonized is never a perfectly good thing. People died. Freedom was taken away, etc. But I also have to acknowledge that those colonial years really formed our nation (the good and bad bits).

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  3. iba talaga kapag sa antique philippines you cant find it some were else

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  4. iba talga kapag sa antique philippines kasi you cant find it some were else

    ReplyDelete

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