Hive Philippines Travel and Nature Photography #1083 - by Allmonitors

#1083 - San Sebastian Church of Manila Shots for Tuesday.

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Moving now to our daily shots right after leaving the crowded Chinatown in Manila after eating a bag of hot toasted siopao, my wife and I stopped on the way home at San Sebastian Church which is not like the usual stone cathedrals but like a gigantic, rusty ship in the middle of the city.

We arrived just as the mass has ended with the priest talking to his parishioners at the entrance with massive wooden doors while a stream of people comes out. We stepped inside and the air was cool, quiet and smelled of candle wax and a faint, metallic like smell.

The first thing that struck me was the church height. It felt like looking up into the iron skeleton. Everywhere we looked, there's metal, steel soared to the ceiling, holding up the entire roof. They weren’t painted but were proudly bare painted only in a faded gray due to old age the metal like old bruises. The columns, the walls, the works were all fabricated iron.

I reached out and touched a column wall. It felt solid and cool there's probably concrete inside and it's a hundred and thirty years of prayers sealed into the surface. I imagined this entire church being shipped across the oceans with every screw and like a giant puzzle assembled right here in Manila.

The last worshippers were lighting their candles while my wife and I walked slowly down the side aisle. It felt more like being in a silent train station from a forgotten time than a typical church. There was a powerful strength to it. It had survived WW2, many earthquakes and the tropical humid air that wants to rust everything in its path.

We sat for a moment with the quiet which was immense. After the delicious adventure in Chinatown, this was a cool silence experience. We weren’t just in an old church but the first and only all steel church in the country afaik, a marvel of engineering.

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Shot taken in Manila, Philippines.