Jakarta Cathedral

About

Set in the heart of Jakarta near Merdeka Square, the cathedral takes its official name from the Indonesian Gereja Santa Perawan Maria Diangkat ke Surga, the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary taken up into Heaven. As the mother church of the Archdiocese of Jakarta it bears the cathedra of the archbishop.

The building is a striking example of late-nineteenth-century neo-Gothic, raised on a Latin cross plan with narthex, nave, transepts, and apse to the east. Two slender western spires rise sixty metres above the entrance: the Turris Davidica, honoured as the Tower of David in the Marian tradition, and the Ivory Tower, evoking the purity of the Mother of God. A third spire of forty-five metres, the Tower of the Angelus Dei, stands above the crossing.

At the trumeau of the main portal stands a statue of Our Lady, with the inscription from the Magnificat above her. A great rose window, the Rozeta Rosa Mystica, takes its name from another Marian title. The triforium gallery now houses the Jakarta Cathedral Museum, where vestments, chalices, and the history of the Indonesian Catholic Church are gathered.

The cathedral stands beside Istiqlal Mosque, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, with a pedestrian tunnel between them completed in 2021 as a sign of friendship between the two communities.

History

The first Catholic church on this site, also named for Our Lady of the Assumption, was blessed on 6 November 1829 after the Dutch East Indies reopened to Catholic worship, but the building collapsed on 9 April 1890. Reconstruction ran from 1891 to 1901 under the Jesuit Antonius Dijkmans and, from 1899, the architect Marius Hulswit, who chose cast iron for the spires so the church could be finished by local builders without stone-masonry training. Mgr Edmundus Sybrandus Luypen, SJ blessed the completed cathedral on 21 April 1901, and a further restoration was carried out between 1988 and 2002.

Significance

As the seat of the Archbishop of Jakarta, the cathedral gathers Indonesia's Catholic community for the sacraments and for the daily rhythm of the Mass, its triforium now home to a museum of vestments and chalices tracing the Church's history in the archipelago. Since 2021 a Tunnel of Friendship has linked its grounds directly to the neighbouring Istiqlal Mosque, a physical sign of the friendship the two congregations have built side by side in the heart of the capital.

Architecture

Neo-Gothic, Latin cross plan with narthex, nave, transepts and apse; twin 60-metre spires of cast iron over a masonry base