San José Church

igle­sia-san-jose

San José Church

The church of San Jose is one of the rare goth­ic church­es in the New World.  Con­struc­tion start­ed in 1530 after gov­er­nor Juan Ponce de León donat­ed the land for the San Jose square, the church and the Domini­can Con­vent next door.

The church’s goth­ic archi­tec­ture is breath­tak­ing.  Puer­to Rico’s most famous painter José Campeche is buried at “Igle­sia San José” as was orig­i­nal­ly Juan Ponce de León.  The wood­en cru­ci­fix that hangs over the church’s altar was donat­ed by Ponce de León in the 16th Cen­tu­ry.  And the 15th Cen­tu­ry altar was built to order in Cadiz, Spain.

The fact that the church has nev­er been restored is both a bless­ing and chal­lenge.  The immense amount of work and resources that will be required to return the struc­ture to its orig­i­nal splen­dor is beyond imag­i­na­tion.  But the fact that it has nev­er been touched also makes things a lot eas­i­er from the restora­tion standpoint.

The Church of San José is by no means the old­est church in San Juan.  That hon­or goes to San Juan Cathe­dral that pre­dates it by a few years and is prob­a­bly the old­est cathe­dral in the New World.  How­ev­er, the orig­i­nal San Juan Cathe­dral was destroyed by a hur­ri­cane and the present day build­ing only dates back to the 1800’s.

San José church is present­ly under­go­ing restora­tion and it is closed to the pub­lic until fur­ther notice.

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

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