The first church in Bethlehem was built temporarily inside the Fort of the Nativity and it was dedicated to Our Lady of Grace. A few years later was transferred to the current Cathedral Square, in a precarious construction. In the following century, in 1719, the Diocese of Maranhao is broken at the request of D. John V and Bethlehem is to host the newly created Diocese of Para, earning the right to honor to his Episcopal church.
The works of the current building, constructed in the same place as the early church began in the year 1748. Around this time the general layout of the church and the lower levels of the facade, including the main portal of feature baroque Pombal. After several interruptions, the direction of the work was taken in 1755 by Antonio Jose Landi, Italian architect came to Bethlehem in 1753, which left vast work in the region. Landi finished the facade, adding the two towers and pediment. Towers, similar to the Church of Mercy in Bethlehem, also designed by Landi, have no parallels in the Luso-Brazilian world and are inspired by models Bolognese, home region of the architect. The stately pediment, flanked by neoclassical pyramidal pinnacles, has a profile more baroque-rococo and contains a niche with a statue of Our Lady. The construction was fully completed in 1782.
In 1882, the interior decoration of the church underwent a radical overhaul ordered by Bishop Antonio de Macedo Costa, when the cathedral has undergone a major change. The original altarpiece, authored by Landi, was character and embodied a rococo painting of Our Lady of Grace written by the eighteenth-century Portuguese painter Pedro de Carvalho Alexandrian. As far as painting the altarpiece are now lost and are known only through drawings.
The current main altar was created in Rome by Luca Carimini in the nineteenth century, while the paintings that decorate the interior were made by the Italian Domenico de Angelis and Giusepe Capranesi. The great organ, the workshop of French Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, was installed in 1882, being the largest organ in Latin America.
The Sé Cathedral of Bethlehem was elevated to the seat of the archdiocese in 1906.
The cathedral is an important part of the traditional celebration of the Cirio de Nazare, the largest procession in the western world. After a Mass in the cathedral, the statue of Our Lady of Nazareth part in a procession from the Cathedral to the Basilica of Our Lady of Nazareth, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of people.
After several years without being subjected to serious measures of conservation, which has deteriorated quite a few aspects of its structure and artistic, the Metropolitan Cathedral of Bethlehem was eventually subjected to restoration in 2005, was reopened to the public on September 1 2009.
by Amanda B. de Sousa
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