English
Church of Our Lady of Bethlehem
Dongri, Mumbai Metropolitan Area (Bombay), India
Religious Architecture
he Church of Our Lady of Bethlehem of Dongri is splendidly located on a site still untouched by the urbanisation of Salsette. Its façade faces north toward Vasai Creek, with the old city hidden by coconut palms and the haze on the other bank to the northwest. The walled perimeter, architectural type, terrain and location with respect to the village are probably the same as when the church was founded by the Jesuits in about 1613. That date was added to the façade in the 20th century by the first parish priest Francisco de Azevedo, SJ. The church has a single nave with tile roof and the chancel was either vaulted or smooth-ceilinged with coating, though it is or was most likely vaulted, to judge by the exterior abutments. The façade has three parts, with three arched doorways, the central one the biggest, and two bell bays with two very narrow corresponding sections. The basic argument in favour of the church’s walled perimeter dating to the early 1600s is the interior form of some of the windows: redone in modern times in Gothic form, they maintained the characteristic segmental arch form we find throughout the north and here and there in Goa or Kerala in 16th or 17th century buildings. In 1902 the staircase was built (with the date inscribed) behind the bell bay on the south side and provides access to the high choir over the entrance. The southern side, where a door opens to the nave, acts as a second façade. The church turns this side to the village, which even today mainly comprises traditional Catholic houses (one dated 1933). The front façade in turn faces the open ground and the river beyond. A modern inscription inside the church, more explicit and in English, attributes the church’s 1916 renovation to the vicar Pascoal Collaço, under the authority of the Archbishop of Daman, Sebastião José Pereira. The exterior Gothic form of most of the bays certainly date to this intervention, along with the ceramic pavement and the church’s wooden ceiling, the Gothic side altars and even the high altar, whose form seems to be a variation of the baroque altars of Vasai nearby at the Gorai Church (transferred to the new church in the early 19th century) and on the other side of the river in Manickpur. This renovation work was probably also responsible for the reworked gable and redecoration of the church’s main façade. Except for the bays’ profile, which is original, the undulating cornice, art nouveau pinnacles, bell towers, adornment and even the pilasters (which replace older ones whose outlines remain on the façades) seem to be early 19th century.