POSITION PAPER

Limasawa or Butuan? Debates continue on where first Mass was held

The first ever Easter Mass in quite a while a milestone throughout the entire existence of Philippine
Christianity was held in 1521 on the island of Mazaua, referred to the present time as Limasawa Island,
Leyte. This was the decision made by Dr. Antonio Sanchez de Mora, a specialist on Spanish middle age
history and top of the reference administration at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain,
subsequent to looking over sources in the file relevant to the underlying experience and first mass
celebrated in an island called Mazaua and contrasting them and other recorded sources. The issue of the
specific area of the notable Mass was before settled by the NHI, the precursor of the NHCP, through two
boards of specialists: the principal drove by previous Supreme Court Justice Emilio Gancayco in 1995
and the second by antiquarian Benito Legarda in 2008. The two boards decided that the site of the 1521
Easter Sunday Mass was Limasawa Island.

The suggestion of the new board drove by history specialist and National Artist for Literature Resil
Mojares was upheld by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, which had sent its own
congregation antiquarian as board part and a few individuals from the Church Historians Association
of the Philippines, the NHCP said.

The board rethought the investigations and writing on the matter, assembled the surviving duplicates of
Antonio Pigafetta's narratives and different records abroad, overviewed the assumed destinations of the
occasion in Butuan and Limasawa, counseled specialists in topography and map making, and presented
its report for audit by the set of experiences branches of different Philippine colleges.

The decision was made with regards to seven days before Limasawa marks its 37th establishing
commemoration on Aug. 27, Petracorta told the Inquirer. "It's actually a gift to individuals of
Limasawa. All things considered, it's a triumph of Limasawa as well as of the whole Eastern Visayas,"
he said. The Diocese of Maasin, which has locale over Limasawa, was likewise excited by the NHCP's
choice. Fr. Johnrey Sibi, top of the Limasawa Commission, said everybody was presently "propelled to
buckle down" for the festival of the 500th commemoration of the principal Mass in March 2021. Some
say that the setting is the island of Limasawa in Leyte. Others, nonetheless, guarantee that Pigafetta was
alluding to Masao the local area at the mouth of Agusan River nearby what is currently the city of
Butuan.

Approaching a long time since the principal Mass, discusses proceed with whether it was hung on
Limasawa Island, in Agusan or elsewhere. "To the extent our set of experiences books, the principal
Mass is in Limasawa. In any case, there are different spots that are guaranteeing that the primary Mass
was held in their territory. The verifiable commission some way or another opens the conversation
among specialists and antiquarians. Nearby antiquarian Rolando Borrinaga, who had investigated on
and addressed Limasawa before the board of specialists and the NHCP, thought about the choice "sweet
justification." In its report, the board and the NHCP supported Borrinaga's case that the noteworthy
Mass was held in Barangay Triana, and not in Barangay Magallanes. They said Saub Point in Triana
ought to similarly be perceived as the site of the cross planted by Magellan and his men. The National
Quincentennial Committee (NQC) appropriated reserves and gave the board relevant archives.
Through true correspondences with different unfamiliar organizations, the NQC acquired a high-goal
computerized duplicate of the Pigafetta original copies, including the French form (Nancy Codex) right
now kept in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library; the Italian variant in the
Veneranda Biblioteca (Ambrosiana Codex) in Milan, Italy; and the two French adaptations in the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
It additionally got from the Edward Ayer Collection at Newberry Library in Chicago the records and
notes made by American researcher James Alexander Robertson, who made an interpretation of
Pigafetta's original copies into English in 1906. The board moreover got and counseled the records of
different overcomers of the Magellan campaign, as Gines de Mafra, Francisco Albo, and the "Genoese
Pilot." Pigafetta's observer account is the most definite and just enduring record of the first Mass in
quite a while. Be that as it may, there are various understandings of his record on where it was held.
History specialist Gabriel Atega said Butuan had for some time been viewed as the site of the Mass. He
contended that the shift from Butuan to Limasawa happened after the distribution of Robertson's notes.
Atega said Robertson's interpretation of Pigafetta's compositions into English depended on the
"jumbled" Italian text of the Ambrosiana Codex that Carlo Amoretti, consul and conservator of the
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, translated and distributed in 1800. Atega accentuated the assurance of longitude
to pinpoint the area of the primary Mass. Refering to essential sources, he followed the course taken by
the Magellan undertaking and inferred that 93⁄4 degrees scope joined with his perusing of longitude
arranges in different sources prompted Butuan as the site of the Mass. Despite the fact that it
considered Atega's examination praiseworthy, the board said longitudinal estimations during the Age of
Exploration were "uncertain and temperamental" on the grounds that these navigational directions
were gauges and deductively loose.

It called attention to the chronometer, the instrument imagined by John Harrison to gauge longitude
precisely, was just concocted during the 1760s. It likewise got from the Edward Ayer Collection at
Newberry Library in Chicago the records and notes made by American researcher James Alexander
Robertson, who made an interpretation of Pigafetta's compositions into English in 1906. The board
moreover acquired and counseled the records of different overcomers of the Magellan campaign, as
Gines de Mafra, Francisco Albo, and the "Genoese Pilot." Pigafetta's onlooker account is the most
nitty gritty and just enduring record of the first Mass in quite a while. Yet, there are various
understandings of his record on where it was held. Student of history Gabriel Atega said Butuan had
for some time been viewed as the site of the Mass. He contended that the shift from Butuan to
Limasawa happened after the distribution of Robertson's notes. Atega said Robertson's
interpretation of Pigafetta's compositions into English depended on the "confused" Italian text of the
Ambrosiana Codex that Carlo Amoretti, administrator and conservator of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana,
translated and distributed in 1800.

In light of his examination, Mora inferred that the disarray with the Butuan custom "comes from a
mistaken perusing of the annals and the longing of certain teachers of sixteenth and seventeenth
hundreds of years to request the change of the locals of Mindanao on account of the proclaiming of
the Jesuits , whatever representative and philosophical worth the mass had, the reality stays that "no
enduring Christian people group was set up" as "Magellan was given on clear teacher order" when he
set out on his campaign. He said "it would require an additional forty years for precise and strong
proselytizing to happen." Mora gathered his sources into four: records composed during Ferdinand
Magellan's noteworthy undertaking all throughout the planet; reports and declarations of the
survivors who figured out how to make it back to Europe; annals and other essential sources by
creators who met the survivors and who counseled their archives just as guides and nautical
diagrams; and auxiliary sources that years after the fact deciphered the data given by the essential
sources and the declarations communicated after some time