ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 ℂ𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕟 - 𝕊𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕒𝕝𝕖 ℂ𝕙𝕦𝕣𝕔𝕙

 Heart of Christian

Built in 1606, the church was the heart of the local Catholic community for more than 200 years, until it was destroyed by fire in 1834. Only the Baroque facade and the altar were saved, near which a small chapel has been built.

Due to its historical value, the façade of the church of Sancoale is officially recognised by Indian authorities as an architectural heritage site.

While traveling to panaji slides you c get to see the beautiful crown of the church of St Joseph Vaz from cortalim bridge  to be honest wow .it's really a nice experience seeing it from there it . looks like as it the church is  is located on d small island surrounded with water on it's all sides .

I happened to visit this place during walking pilgrimage which was held for all of goa . from every part of goa people have to come walking 10 kilometres to the St Joseph Vaz church Sancoale .I started my walking journey from cansaulim junction .the start was quite a sought of stressful because we had already walked for an hour or more than that i guess and as it was my first time i could not figure out how much more to walk until i saw busstand of Sancoale thats what really gave me a relief that we were not too far to reach there. And that's when i thought we would reach there in an other 20-30  minutes but it wasn't it took almost 1 hour but still it was nothing from there because i already fixed it in my mind that we had reached the destiny. To reach there it took nearly 2 and half hour . By 4:30 am we reached which was started at 2:00 am  from cansaulim junction.

What an amazing peaceful place with cold breeze blowing from all the sides wow it was amazing i would say . Seeing the sunrise was the one of the best part of it.

However, the spot, with a charming view of River Zuari, is likely to register more footfalls in the near future as the Goa Archdiocese plans to dedicate the historic site to the state’s first saint, Joseph Vaz. It was here, 340 years ago, that St Vaz had signed a ‘Deed of Bondage’ to Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

“He surrendered his life to Mother Mary, so he could dedicate himself to the service of Jesus .

As a youth, St Vaz was part of the 17th century church, and probably received his first Holy Communion and even celebrated his first Mass there after his ordination in 1676, Church sources said. As such, the Church plans to restore the existing edifice into a basilica dedicated to Goa’s first saint. “It is in the fitness of things to honour St Vaz. That is why the feast will be celebrated at the spot,” a Church source said.

The sanctuary at Sancoale was built to promote the cause of his sainthood. “Fr Isidore D’Cunha from Cuelim, Cansaulim, then a professor of Collegio de Rachol, advised the then bishop of Goa to promote devotion to Joseph Vaz. For this, a shrine was needed,”

Name: Viola Fernandes

Roll no.: 2203256

Class/Div.: FYBCom B