Itinerant Saint: The Architecture of Golden Goa and the 1952 Exposition of St. Francis Xavier’s Relics

Abstract

Abstract Francis Xavier (1506–52) was Spanish, but it was the Portuguese who kept his legacy alive in their Asian colonies. Although Xavier died in China, it was Goa—capital of the Portuguese Empire in Asia—that received his mortal remains in 1554, which were believed to be miraculously preserved from blemish. This article concerns the 1952 exposition of the saint’s relics, which marked 400 years of Xavier’s death and was attended by a record number of pilgrims. Although the exposition was intended to celebrate a saint, the state (Estado Novo) used the occasion to showcase Goa’s Europeanised culture for propaganda. With the pressure from newly Independent India to oust the Portuguese from Goa, the Estado Novo refused to cede any part of its overseas territory on the basis of its uniqueness from the neighbouring region. The state used the exposition, and the large gathering of devotees attending it, to make a point that Goa continued to remain an integral part of the Portuguese nation. Ostensibly, the state changed the venue of the exposition from the Basilica of Bom Jesus to Sé Cathedral. Although the basilica had been hosting the periodic exposition from 1859 to 1942, the cathedral was considered to be architecturally a much bigger and richer monument. This shift of the exposition to the cathedral was also aimed at adding a new ritual to the event: a grand procession of Xavier’s body from one church to another. Located 1000 feet apart from each other, the procession traversed a public open space between these historical buildings, wherein a record number of devotees could witness/participate this event simultaneously. While the body of Xavier and architecture of Old Goa were relics from the heyday of the empire, the state also wanted to use the faithful, who came in large numbers to celebrate this occasion, as visual evidence to showcase the longevity of Portuguese presence in Goa.