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Igreja de Santa Maria de Belém

Belém

Churches & Religious Sites

The Igreja de Santa Maria de Belém, also called the Church of Saint Mary of Bethlehem in English, stands at Praça do Império, 1400-206 Lisboa, in the Belém district of Lisbon. It is the southern church attached to the Jerónimos Monastery and is still an active monastery church. Its architecture is Manueline, and it holds national tombs. The monastery complex is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Going into the church costs nothing, while the monastery's main cloisters require a paid ticket. The church has its own entrance within the same complex, reached from outside the paid cloister route. Its queue is separate from the monastery's, so anyone planning to see both should expect two lines. The church is closed on Mondays. It opens from 10:30 to 17:00 Tuesday to Saturday, and from 14:00 to 17:00 on Sundays. Branching columns and a wide open nave give the interior a scale that the cloister alone cannot offer. Just inside the entrance is the sarcophagus of Vasco da Gama. On the opposite side lies the poet Luís de Camões, whose works represent the pinnacle of Portuguese Renaissance literature. The broad transverse roof in front of the main altar has no pillars holding it up, and it is regarded as a medieval engineering marvel. A crucifixion figure is kept on the second floor, and the high choir looks down into the church. The outside is richly carved. The southern portal rises two stories and carries many reliefs. The coat of arms of Manuel I sits in the central spandrel, and the reliefs above the arch show St. Jerome removing a thorn from a lion's paw and St. Jerome in the desert. The main entrance has a Nativity scene carved above its arch, flanked by statues of Manuel I, the Virgin Mary, St. Jerome, St. John and other saints. The site has a long past. An earlier church dedicated to Santa Maria de Belém stood by the harbour of Praia do Restelo, where monks of the Order of Christ helped seafarers passing through. Vasco da Gama and his men spent a night in prayer there before leaving in 1497. One account says Manuel I started the present structure in 1495. Construction began on 6 January 1501 and took about a century. Monks of the Hieronymite order lived in the complex for over four centuries. After the earthquake of 1755, much of the artwork and treasure was moved to the crown or lost, and the building was emptied. Restoration began in the late 1800s, and the church's annex and facade were altered substantially then.

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