The Jesuit Missions - Their Churches

Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam. "For the glory of God...and salvation of one's neighbour." This, the Jesuits' motto and codicil, takes on a visually awesome appearance when the churches of the Jesuit Missions Circuit are encountered. These edifices, so inspiring, so evocative, and so unique, stand as architectural and spiritual proofs of how seriously these European missionaries took their vows. These same churches - known as templos locally - also stand as testimony to the incredible talent and faith of the native populace, who painstakingly built each and every one by hand under the guidance of the Jesuits (with the exception of that of Santa Ana de Velasco, which they built themselves after the Jesuits' expulsion). If one doubts the success of this bold experiment in harmonising the cultures, beliefs, and societies of the Old and New Worlds, these magnificent buildings offer more than adequate proof.

The churches were consciously built with the intent of proclaiming the supreme power and presence of God in their midst. The Jesuits and natives took the rôle and symbolism of a physical church very seriously. Each was to be the actualisation of the biblical mandate domus dei et porta coeli ("The house of God and gate of heaven", Gen. 28:17). In fact, several bear this very inscription above their entrance. They were - and are - stunning architectural masterpieces, the likes of which are found nowhere else on earth. They remain today as the only uninterrupted physical examples of a successful synthesis of native and European cultures in the entire Western Hemisphere. Of the better known Jesuit missions of Argentina and Brazil, and especially those of Paraguay (constructed in similar fashion to those of the Chiquitos before being rebuilt in stone), every one is now a ruin. Only these seven in the distant Chiquitania remain, lovingly restored to their original spendour.

Their Construction: An Overview
Dr. Eckhart Kühne, an expert on these churches and key collaborator with Hans Roth (see below), offers an excellent synopsis of their general type and structure, as follows.

"The stylistic and structural type of the "multi-aisle timber-skeleton church" originated in the seventeenth century in the sub-tropical wooded areas of Paraguay and Bolivia. A single, large saddle roof on carved wooden columns covers the roomy church with vestibule and lateral porticos. The type is related to the building method of the [Amer]Indian community houses, uses existing building materials and is thus suited to the regional climate, social requirements, limited previous technical knowledge of the [builders], and the marginal situation in the Spanish colonial empire. In all mission villages, the church, together with the bell tower, pasonage, school, workshops, and dwelling-houses, make up a uniform, planned design."

Kühne also notes that: "In their construction and style, the seven churches (except parts of [that of] San José) form a very homogenous group. All were built between 1745 and 1775, but their artistic adornment, with carved altarpieces and sculptures, continued to be added until around 1810."

These edifices also are the only intact examples of the first period of mission church architecture left in the Western Hemisphere. Most of the mission churches outside of urban areas were first established - whether in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, or elsewhere - as wooden and adobe structures, very much along the lines of the Chiquitos mission churches. In most cases, the churches were surprisingly simple structures, essentially "a long hall made of a wooden frame with adobe walls, a pitched wooden roof and two rows of wooden columns separating the aisles", according to the noted art historian Dr. Gauvin Bailey (Art of Colonial America, p. 225). These structures allowed for fast construction with no prior archirectural experience (especially important given that native craftsmen had no concept of such large buildings).

In short order, however, many were re-built in stone, which the missionaries felt imparted a sense of solidity and at the same time was more befitting for a house of God. The churches of the Chiquitania, however, with the sole exception of San José de Chiquitos, were mostly of wood and adobe. (The bell tower of the now-vanished church of San Juan Bautista also is of stone, although its church was of adobe and wood.) As Bailey notes in the same work, the churches of the Chiquitos are rare exceptions in that they are preserved in their original form, and therefore stand as singular examples of what the earliest Jesuit churches in Latin America looked like.

All were built after the towns were established, not simultaneously. Although each is unique and stands on its own merits, each also followed a precise plan and uniform design that called for not just an enormous church, but also a bell tower, parsonage, school, workshops, and houses for the Indian converts, in fact, a complete mission complex (complejo). The late Dr. Alcides Parejas, the leading Bolivian authority on the missions, identified seven principle characteristics of these churches.

Ten churches were built, of which seven still exist (one - that of San Ignacio de Velasco - is a not a restoration but a reconstruction, thus the reason for its omission as a World Heritage Site). These seven comprise the Jesuit Mission Circuit churches (three others, those of Santiago de Chiquitos, San Juan Bautista, and Santo Corazón, also exist, albeit in a state of replacement, ruin, and decay, respectively). At least three (those of San Xavier, San Rafael de Velasco, and Concepción) are attributable to the indefatigable Fr. Martin Schmid, and another two (San Ignacio and San Miguel) to one of his co-workers.

The enormity of the task of building these churches is scarcely imaginable today. They did not spring up overnight: it took years of painstaking work, with every piece hecho a mano ("made by hand"). Take the example of the templo at Concepción, which was begun in 1752 by Schmid and completed his associate Messner. More than 2,000 hardwood trees were felled, as each of the massive beams required an entire tree trunk. The trees were about 36 feet (12 metres) in height, and on average weighed in excess of nine tonnes. For the roof, more than 100,000 bricks and tiles were needed, and an additional 150,000 for other sections of the building. The vertical columns - also of hardwood - weighed 20 tonnes each. All this was done by hand, using only the crudest of tools. The result was a church that held more than 3,000 people.

UNESCO World Heritage Site inscription: Church of San Javier

So important were - and are - these churches that they were named to the register of the prestigious World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1990. They still play a central role in the lives of the people of the Chiquitania, and to the missionaries (now mostly German, Italian, and Polish Franciscans) who continue to minister to their spiritual needs. They are at the same time parish churches - enormously large and historic ones at that - and spiritual centres for the people who live in the region and still observe many of the same rites and traditions from the missionary era, three hundred years later.

Their Preservation: The Genius of Hans Roth
That they still exist today is a small miracle in itself. One would never guess that a few decades ago every one of them was in a state of near ruin. In 1957, a Jesuit missionary visiting Bolivia, Fr. Felix Plattner, travelled to the Chiquitania in an attempt to re-trace the peringrinations of his vocational ancestor, Fr. Martin Schmid, so important in the history of the Jesuit missions in Chiquitos. He was amazed at what he saw: seven massive templos seemingly frozen in time, but decaying by the minute. Standing in front of the church at San Rafael de Velasco, he made a vow that he would try to save at least one of these spiritual masterpieces before they all sank into oblivion. In 1972, he sent to San Rafael a Swiss architect and then-Jesuit priest, one Hans Roth. Fr. Plattner gave Roth six months to begin the restoration, along with round-trip air fare. Roth arrived and never went back.

The fact that these churches exist in their present form is due largely to the late architect and preservationist Roth. Working with a few European colleagues - including Kühne - but otherwise with entirely native talent, Roth almost single-handedly saved these monuments from near-certain ruin. He spent more than 27 years at this labour of love, his life's work, and had a rôle in every aspect of each church's restoration or reconstruction. At the time of his death (1999), he had successfully or largely restored the churches and numerous other colonial buildings of San Xavier, San Rafael, San José de Chiquitos, Concepción, San Miguel de Velasco, and Santa Ana - all now World Heritage Sites - and the second reconstruction of the church of San Ignacio (the first was a botched job demolished in 1948). He also worked on the amazing Sanctuario Mariano de la Torre in Chochís and at least a hundred other sites throughout the region.The Chiquitania today would be a very pale shadow of itself were it not for Roth's incredible efforts. It is no exaggeration to say he was as important to the region as was Fr. Schmid more than 200 years before.

Roth's close collaborator Kühne - who knew him better than almost anyone else - sums ups Roth's work in the following passage.

"That which began as a short rescue action of a collapse-endangered church gradually became one of the most comprehensive and sustainable restoration projects in all of South America - not just with a view towards preservation of old monuments, but also as a means for the social, cultural, and pastoral development of the region, similar to [that of] when the buildings [first] arose. Roth worked like a missionary, only for church employers, without the backing of national authorities, without previous monument preservation instruction, and almost only with local craftsmen who were trained on the building sites and in the apprentice workshops. In addition, Roth raised over one hundred new buildings - from churches to schools and house-building programmes - with which he created a new regional architectural style. He founded museums and archives, defended the rights of the [indigenous peoples] and studied their history."

He made it all possible: the late Hans Roth "In memory of Hans Roth (1934-1999), theologian and architect. Restorer of the Jesuit churches, defender of Chiquitania culture, creator of a new regional architecture, and driving force behind the music of the missions. He taught us to dream and made that dream a reality."

As a result of the work of like Roth, Kühne and their colleagues, these templos now play an additional role as magnets for tourists from the world over, who come to worship (sometimes) and stand in awe (always) of these splendid monuments. They house rare musical instruments, musical scores, and priceless works of art. They train the next generation of local artists and artisans, who remain faithful to the music and carvings their ancestors produced centuries ago. And they play host every other year to the International Festival of American Baroque Music, "Misiones de Chiquitos". In the words of Kühne again: "They are of singular importance in the cultural history of South America since they are not only the last remaining churches from the former Jesuit Missions, but also the best type of building once widespread in South America."

Thomas Drain, also an architect and theologian, in his introduction to A Sense of Mission, a book on the Spanish mission churches of the southwestern United States, could just as easily have been referring to the Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos when he wrote: "Although there were other areas in which the two systems of belief never approached one another, the mission churches are the artistic record of the meeting of these two cultures and may be the greatest treasure created by the Spanish presence among the native Americans."

The impression these magnificent structures make upon the visitor is something that will never be forgotten. In "Missions in a Musical Key: The Jesuit Reductions of Chiquitos, Bolivia", Bailey writes: "I have visited Jesuit foundations around the world...few have made such a lasting impression as these quiet but astonishing villages. With their unpaved streets and low adobe architecture, the Chiquitos circuit gives the 21st-century traveller an incomparable sense of what life must have been like in this vast but empty land more than two hundred years ago."

Jesuit Mission Churches in the Chiquitania

     *  Designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.