Missão do Sagrado Coração de Jesus (Soibada)

The Mission in Soibada

The Missão do Sagrado Coração de Jesus ( German Mission of the Sacred Heart of Jesus ) in Soibada is originally a Christian mission in the interior of the East Timorese community of Manatuto . It houses the oldest existing mission school in the country, which is also called the Coimbra of East Timor. In the Catholic school in Suco Manlala ( 638 m above sea level) 600 students from 6 to 16 years of age are taught, 78 of them live in the convent with the three nuns who work as teachers in the school.

history

The Mission in Soibada

The tower of the mission

At the beginning of the 18th century, the Dominican Manuel de Santo António proselytized in Samoro and converted the local Liurai , the traditional ruler of Timor , to Christianity. Soibada also belonged to Samoro. In 1856, however, the Portuguese no longer registered any Christians in the highlands of Manatuto.

In 1899, Jesuits and sisters of the Canossians , commissioned by Vicar General António Joaquim de Medeiros , founded the mission in Soibada, which at that time consisted of simple huts. The vicar general, who was responsible for the south of the colony, took his seat here in 1900. In the same year construction began on the home of the missionaries, the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and two Colégios . The Colégio Nuno Álvares Pereira for the boys opened in 1904. The Colégio da Imaculada Conceição for girls started operating around 1910. Soibada was the religious and educational center in Timor at that time.

On December 23, 1910, however, the Jesuits were expelled from Soibada by order of the new, republican administration. Only with the new Portuguese constitution of 1933 and the laws of 1935 was the decree of 1910 repealed. On October 13, 1936, the Nossa Senhora da Fatima seminary was founded in Soibada . There was also a school for the formation of catechists, the Escola São Francisco Xavier .

The Mission's buildings escaped destruction by the Japanese in World War II as the local ruler Raimundo Doutel Sarmento stood up for them. But after the war, Soibada began to decline. In 1951 the seminary and catechist school were moved to Dare and a diocese was established in Barique .

In school, the children of the Liurais were brought up and trained in Europe for the first time . This new generation later formed a new Christian elite in the colony on which Portuguese rule could rest. The freedom fighter and poet of East Timor’s national anthem Francisco Borja da Costa , the later bishop Alberto Ricardo da Silva and the former presidents Nicolau dos Reis Lobato and José Ramos-Horta also went to the Colégio Nuno Álvares Pereira here.

Since the independence of East Timor, the aid organization Pittwater Friends of Soibada has also supported Soibada in maintaining the buildings.

Building

Entrance to the Colégio

The buildings are made of whitewashed stone and are built on a hill. The main building has a ground floor, an upper floor and an attic. The other houses have a gallery along their entire length that serves as a veranda. There is a small cloister and a large, outer stone staircase that is laid out in the form of an open-air auditorium. The complex resembles a Benedictine monastery . The clear geometric shapes and the gallery arches closed with double, dark brown wooden shutters, which are due to the local climate, are striking. The doors and windows on the lower floor have straight lintels , while those on the upper floor are semicircular. A portico with triangular gables and two columns forms the main entrance to both floors of the building. The pillars form a pair with two other pillars that border the facade, creating a veranda covered by the gable.