FIRST MASS: LIMASAWA or MASAO

( April 16)—The first ever Easter Mass in the Philippines – a landmark in the history of Philippine
Christianity – was held in 1521 on the island of Mazaua, known today as Limasawa Island, Leyte.

This was the conclusion drawn by Dr. Antonio Sanchez de Mora, an expert on Spanish medieval
history and head of the reference service at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain, after
combing over sources in the archive pertinent to the initial encounter and first mass celebrated
in an island called Mazaua and comparing them with other archival sources.

Mora presented his findings as the centerpiece of “500th Anniversary of the Mass at Limasawa:
The Confusion and Contention over Mazaua,” the second installment of the College of Social
Sciences and Philosophy Department of History’s “Talastasan sa Kasaysayan” online lecture
series held on Mar. 16, 4 p.m. over Zoom and broadcast over the the National Quincentennial
Commission of the Philippines (NQC) portal.

Mora grouped his sources into four: documents written during Ferdinand Magellan’s historic
expedition around the world; reports and testimonies of the survivors who managed to make it
back to Europe; chronicles and other primary sources by authors who interviewed the survivors
and who consulted their documents as well as maps and nautical charts; and secondary sources
that years later interpreted the information provided by the primary sources and the
testimonies transmitted over time.

Mora said the documents, primary sources and maps from the 16th century confirm that the
island of Mazaua was the site of an Easter Sunday Mass on March 31, 1521 and that on a hill on
this island a cross was raised to be seen from afar.

“The geographical description, the analysis of the directions, the revision of the maps and the
references to the island of Mazaua between 1521 and 1565 must identify it with [modern-day]
Limasawa,” he said.

Up until 1921, it was believed that the event was held somewhere near the mouth of the
Agusan River in what is today the municipality of Magallanes, Agusan del Norte. The shift to the
Limasawa tradition happened following the publication of a transcription of a logbook from a
pilot of the ship Victoria (one of the vessels in the Magellan expedition), stating that the crew
placed a cross on an island called “Mazaua” whose location is closer to Cebu.

Historian Trinidad Pardo de Tavera made the correction when he wrote the program for the
Limasawa exhibit during the 1921 quadricentennial celebration of Magellan’s arrival in the
country, affirming the shift.
The change did not come without resistance, and the National Historical Institute (NHI) would
convene no less than four separate panels in four different decades consisting of leading
historians and intellectuals of the time to discuss, debate and decide on the issue. All of them
came to the same conclusion as Mora.

Based on his research, Mora concluded that the confusion with the Butuan tradition “comes
from an incorrect reading of the chronicles and the desire of some missionaries of 16th and
17th centuries to demand the conversion of the natives of Mindanao thanks to the preaching of
the Jesuits.”

Mora concluded his presentation with a question: How important is which was the first mass
and where it was celebrated? Not very much when in terms of effective historical
evangelization according to guest reactor and Mojares panel member Fr. Antonio Francisco B.
De Castro, S.J. of Ateneo de Manila University.

For Castro, whatever symbolic and theological value the mass had, the fact remains that “no
lasting Christian community was set up” as “Magellan was given on clear missionary mandate”
when he set out on his expedition. He said “it would take another four decades for systematic
and durable evangelization to take place.”

The Talastasan lecture series is a featured event of the UP Diliman Arts and Culture Festival
2021 and is the first of a series of activities in line with the Department of History’s series of
year-long activities that commemorate the quincentennial celebration of the Christianization of
the Philippines.

Date March 31, 1521 (Easter Sunday)

Location Mazaua (present-day Limasawa, Southern Leyte)

Similar El Shaddai (movement), Estêvão Gomes, Enrique of Malacca

The first Catholic mass in the Philippines was on Easter Sunday of March 31, 1521 officiated by
Father Pedro de Valderrama in the shore of a town islet named as Limasawa in the tip of
Southern Leyte. Limasawa is dubbed as the birthplace of Roman Catholicism in the Philippines.

When Ferdinand Magellan and his European crew sailed from San Lucar de Barrameda for an
expedition to search for spices, these explorers landed on the Philippines after their voyage
from other proximate areas. On March 28, 1521, while at sea, they saw a bonfire which turned
out to be Limasawa where they anchored.

Blood compact
The island's sovereign ruler was Rajah Siaiu. When Magellan and comrades set foot on the
grounds of Limasawa, he befriended the Rajah together with his brother Rajah Kulambu of
Butuan. In those days, it was customary among the indigenous—and in most of southeast Asia
—to seal friendship with a blood compact. On instigation of Magellan who had heard the
Malayan term for it, casi casi, the new friends performed the ritual. This was the first recorded
blood compact between Filipinos and Spaniards. Gifts were exchanged by the two parties when
the celebration had ended.

First mass
On March 31, 1521, an Easter Sunday, Magellan ordered a mass to be celebrated which was
officiated by Father Pedro Valderrama, the Andalusion chaplain of the fleet, the only priest
then. Conducted near the shores of the island, the Holy First Mass marked the birth of Roman
Catholicism in the Philippines. Colambu and Siaiu were the first natives of the archipelago,
which was not yet named "Philippines" until the expedition of Ruy Lopez de Villalobos in 1543,
to attend the mass among other native inhabitants.

Planting of the cross

In the afternoon of the same day, Magellan instructed his comrades to plant a large wooden
cross on the top of the hill overlooking the sea. Magellan's chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, who
recorded the event said:

"After the cross was erected in position, each of us repeated a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria,
and adored the cross; and the kings [Colambu and Siaiu] did the same."

Magellan then took ownership of the islands where he had landed in the name of King Charles
V which he had named earlier on March 16 Archipelago of Saint Lazarus because it was the day
of the saint when the Armada reached the archipelago.

Proclamation of the national shrine

On June 19, 1960, Republic Act No. 2733, called the Limasawa Law, was enacted without being
signed by the President of the Philippines. The legislative fiat declared The site in Magallanes,
Limasawa Island in the Province of Leyte, where the first Mass in the Philippines was held is
hereby declared a national shrine to commemorate the birth of Christianity in the Philippine.
Magallanes is east of the island of Limasawa. In 1984 Imelda Marcos had a multi-million pesos
Shrine of the First Holy Mass built, an edifice made of steel, bricks and polished concrete, and
erected on top of a hill overlooking barangay Magallanes, Limasawa. A super typhoon
completely wiped this out just a few months later. Another shrine was inaugurated in 2005.
Limasawa celebrates the historic and religious coming of the Spaniards every March 31 with a
cultural presentation and anniversary program dubbed as Sinugdan, meaning "beginning.". Yet
this has no reference at all to a Catholic mass being held on March 31, 1521.

MASAO
Other Filipino historians has long contested the idea of Limasawa as the site of the first Catholic
mass in the country. Historian Sonia Zaide identified Masao (also Mazaua) in Butuan as the
location of the first Christian mass. Basis of Zaide's claim is the diary of Antonio Pigafetta,
chronicler of Magellan's voyage. In 1995 then Congresswoman Ching Plaza of Agusan del Norte-
Butuan City filed a bill in Congress contesting the Limasawa hypothesis and asserting the "site
of the first mass" was Butuan. The Philippine Congress referred the matter to the National
Historical Institute for it to study the issue and recommend a historical finding. Then NHI chair
Dr. Samuel K. Tan reaffirmed Limasawa as the site of the first mass.

LIMASAWA
In 1996 it reaffirmed the popular belief propelled by Republic Act 2733 that the First Holy Mass
was celebrated in Limasawa Island on March 31, 1521 NHI cited the memories of Antonio
Pigafetta, who chronicled the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan as" The only credible primary
source that yields the best evidence of the celebration of the first Christian mass on Philippine
soil".