Patrick Comerford
Among the many churches and places of worship I visited recently in Singapore, the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul on Queen Street in the Bras Basah Bugis area in the city’s arts district is closely linked with the beginning and growth of the Chinese Catholic community in Singapore.
Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church, with its distinctive tower and porch, was built in 1869-1870 by the Chinese Catholic Mission serving the Chinese dialect groups in Singapore. Initially, it also involved the Indian Catholic community, and it became a centre for many European missionaries while they were learning the Chinese language before other postings.
The Chinese Catholic community contributed to building the first permanent Roman Catholic chapel on Bras Basah Road, on the site of the former Saint Joseph’s Institution, now the site of the Singapore Art Museum. The Chinese Catholic community bore a fifth of the building costs, and the chapel was completed by 1833.
However, the chapel had become too small by the end of the 1830s. Instead of enlarging the chapel, work began on building the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd nearby and Saint Joseph’s Institution took over the former chapel premises.
Father Pierre Paris (1822-1883), a French-born priest, was the pioneering missionary among the Chinese community in Singapore in the 19th century. He was born in Besançon in France in 1822, was ordained in 1851 and left for the mission work in Singapore in 1855.
Father Paris was known as a gifted linguist, speaking Malay, Tamil, Portuguese-Christao and several Chinese dialects fluently. By 1865, had taken charge of pastoral work among both the Chinese and Indian Catholics in Singapore.
With the development of Catholic mission and pastoral among the Chinese and Indian communities under Father Paris, it became increasingly difficult to accommodate the different linguistic and cultural groups in the Church of the Good Shepherd, later the cathedral.
The church was bursting at the seams by 1867, and sermons were in English, Malay and Chinese. There was a need for a new church for the growing Chinese Mission. Father Paris was put in charge of building a new church on the site of the old Chinese catechumenate in Father Jean-Marie Beurel’s former mission house.
The Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul was built in 1869-1870. It served the Chinese Catholic community, along with a smaller but growing number of Tamil-speaking Catholics.
A prominent Chinese Catholic, Pedro Tan Neo Keah, contributed significantly towards the cost of building the church, and it is said that the cost of the compound was underwritten by Napoleon III of France.
The church was built in the tropical Gothic style, a popular architectural style during the colonial period in Singapore. It was first built as a smaller church, with only seven pairs of columns. The façade features statues of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.
The square belfry has three bronze bells donated by Father Paris in 1883 and they are still in use today. The bells were cast in Mans, France, and their rims decorated with engravings of Christ and the Virgin Mary. However, his health prevented Father Paris from being present when the bells were blessed. He also initiated building the spire.
Five stained glass windows inside the church were made in France and installed around 1870. They include depictions of Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Joseph.
Father Pierre Paris died on 23 May 1883 after 28 years in mission work in Singapore and the Malaccan peninsula. He is buried in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, with a memorial stone in the centre aisle of the church he built.
Father Ludovic Jules Galmel, who took over from Father Paris during his illness, completed the spire and built the presbytery. As he spoke no Tamil, another priest became his assistant to minister to the Indian congregation. When the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Ophir Road was built in 1888, the Indian congregation moved there. The Church of Saints Peter and Paul then became an exclusively Chinese parish under Father Alphonse Vignol.
The church was enlarged in 1891-1892, when the sacristy and transept were added. Father Vignol also erected three marble altars and the High Altar was consecrated by Bishop Edouard Gasnier.
The church was extended again in 1910-1911, when the choir loft was enlarged, the entrance porch was built, the façade was extended and the original wooden columns were replaced with steel ones.
The work was funded by wealthy Chinese parishioners, including Low Gek Seng (1843-1911) and Joseph Chan Teck Hee, founding figures in the Bangkok and Singapore-based merchant firm Kiam Hoa Heng. Chan had bought land beside the church and built 11 houses at his own cost to accommodate widows, catechists and elderly people. This became Saint Joseph’s House.
The Cantonese-speaking and Hakka-speaking groups left Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church in 1910 for the new Church of the Sacred Heart in Tank Road, built by Father Vincent Gazeau. The Hoklo people, a Han Chinese subgroup who speak Hokkien, left in 1929 for the new Church of Saint Teresa in Kampong Bahru. These two churches were also financed by wealthy Chinese parishioners.
The gas lighting in Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church was replaced with electric lights in 1915. In 1928, the church received large groups of Chinese Catholic immigrants from Swatow fleeing Communist persecution in China.
The statue of Saint Peter was damaged in 1941 by an unstable man claiming to be the reincarnation of Christ.
Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church had a major renovation as part of its centenary celebrations in June-July 1970. During the renovations, the original neo-gothic high altar and the other side altars were removed, following the liturgical reforms introduced by the Second Vatican Council.
The church once had a pipe organ installed by the Parisian organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll in 1877, but this was dismantled in the 1960s. Parts of the organ were moved to the Catholic High School beside the church. A 50-stop Allen 2 Manual Digital Computer Organ was installed in the Choir Loft in 2008.
The parish of the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul began to decline in the 1980s when schools in the area were relocated and new churches were built in new housing estates for new parishes.
A redevelopment in 2001 included the addition of a new parish building, a columbarium and an Adoration chapel.
The Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul was designated a national monument in 2003.
A major renovation and restoration was completed in 2016, when several original features were restored and many changes in the 1970s were reversed. Another high altar was installed at the east end, an altar rail was reintroduced, the encaustic tiles were sympathetically recreated, the sheet metal vertical window louvres were replaced with wooden louvred windows, the gallery at the west end was removed and the missing rose window was recreated.
The church received the architectural heritage award of the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore in 2016.
Today, the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul is administered by the Discalced Carmelite Friars. Sunday Masses are usually in English, with a Mandarin service on Sunday mornings and a Cantonese service on Sunday afternoons.
