San José de Ayutthaya - Cuna of the mission in Thailand
On the banks of the Chao Phraya River, the church of San José rises in the place where the French bishop Pierre Lambert de la Motte raised in 1666 a wooden temple on the ground given by King Narai of Ayutthaya. Destroyed in the Burmese take of 1767, it was rebuilt in Romanesque style between 1883 and 1891.
🌹 Wonders and anecdotes
- It is the first seat of the French Catholic mission in Siam: Lambert de la Motte, co-founder of the Paris Foreign Missions, arrived in 1662 and found some 2,000 Christians.
- The original complex, called "San José camp," included church and school; the European-style temple was completed in 1695.
- In the destruction of Ayutthaya by the Burmese in 1767, Christians took refuge in the church, which was destroyed; in 1847 a chapel was erected on the same site.
- The present temple was restored in 2003 by Cardinal Michael Michahi Kitbunchu and remains a living church of the Archdiocese of Bangkok.
San José (Ayutthaya)
More than three and a half centuries of uninterrupted Catholic faith in the heart of the ancient capital of Siam: St. Joseph keeps the memory of the first missionaries and the faithful who testified to the end in 1767.
"St. Joseph, the guardian of the first of faith in Siam, and St. Mary his wife, pray for us.
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