See all Churches in Cebu City
Basilica Minore del Santo Nino
Cebu City, PhilippinesAbout
The Minor Basilica of the Holy Child, commonly known as Santo Niño Church, is a minor basilica in Cebu City in the Philippines that was founded in the 1565. It is the oldest Roman Catholic church established in the country on the spot where the image of the Santo Niño de Cebú, a statue depicting the Child Jesus was found in 1565 by Spanish explorers led by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi. The Holy See calls the temple the "Mother and Head of all Churches in the Philippines. The image is the same statue given by Ferdinand Magellan to the wife of Rajah Humabon as a gift over forty years after Humabon's baptism to Christianity on April 14, 1521. It was found by a soldier preserved in a burnt wooden box after Legazpi razed the village of hostile natives. When Pope Paul VI made the church a basilica in 1965, he said it was the symbol of the birth and growth of Christianity in the Philippines.
