English
Church of Our Lady of Hope
Vaipin [Vaipim/Vypeen], Kerala, India
Religious Architecture
Within the framework of the landscape, near the waters of Lake Vembanad and overlooking the city of Kochi, the Church of Our Lady of Hope at Vaipin, clearly assumes the mantle of sacralising the land around the city. The existence of an original church in the place is mentioned in documents from 1560. The former bell tower survives from this original church, which stands in the present-day cemetery. The present church was begun at the beginning of the 17th century and was officially inaugurated in 1605 in the presence of Bishop Andrea de Santa Maria (1588-1610). The church stands in the middle of a vast open space lined by the cemetery, the priest’s residence, chapels and habitation. The church is articulated with a huge cross that endows the enclosure with a powerful sacred character that is a feature of Indo-Portuguese churches in southern India. In aesthetic terms, the building follows a new classic and Mannerist typology, with the façade divided into storeys separated by entablatures. But at the same time the façade follows a simpler programme, undoubtedly due to its Franciscan connections. The perpendicular sections of the façade are not separated by geminated columns, neither are the entablatures separating the storeys so prominent as those we have seen in other churches of the same period. An interesting detail is the archaism of the portal, which has a Manueline design. The interior is of a single nave of simple lines and a large triumphal arch flanked by two large retables. In contrast to the high altar is the upper choir with a beautiful Mannerist balustrade resting on two thick Tuscan columns. It is, however, the altar pieces in the chancel and the crossing wall that are the most notable aspects of the church. Coming from the church of the Franciscan convent, these lateral altars are of rare quality, not only in their composition but also in their delicate carved wood. With a refined Mannerist design, the retable of the high altar is composed of two storeys separated by a straight entablature and the crowning of the attic of a later date. Thick, fluted Corinthian columns, the bottom third decorated with grotesque figures, frame four large paintings; Saint Dominic and Saint Joseph above and Saint Francis and Saint Augustine below. A beautiful pulpit with a polygonal base is decorated with figures in low relief, with Jesus Christ in the middle flanked by the four evangelists. The church was renovated in the 19th century and the design of the original façade was profoundly altered, as its urns and twisted columns in neo-classic taste attest. On the whole, however, the church remains as a unique example of seventeenth-century Indo-Portuguese architecture.