Bone relic of Christianity’s first martyr completes 100 yrs on St Estevam island

Panaji: Just 10km from Old Goa’s Bom Jesus Basilica, where pilgrims and tourists clamour for St Francis Xavier’s relics, a small relic of Christianity’s first martyr — St Stephen — completed 100 years of its quiet presence in Goa.

At the church on the scenic island of St Estevam (the Portuguese equivalent of Stephen), devotees celebrated the feast of the saint, devotees celebrated the feast of St Stephen with the usual pomp and piety on Friday. It is just incidental that the centenary of the installation of the relic — a miniscule bone of the saint — in the church on Aug 3, 1925 went largely unnoticed.




“We held a day’s adoration of the Blessed Sacrament at the church to commemorate 100 years of our patron saint’s relics on Aug 3 this year,” parish priest Fr Manuelio Rodrigues, said.

The present church that sits on a hillock is itself more than 250 years old. The island, nestled in the heart of the picturesque Mandovi basin, automatically earned the name of the saint a few years before St Xavier arrived in Goa.

“After the Portuguese took over Goa on Nov 25, 1510, they circled our Juvem (island) and entered it on Dec 26 — the feast day of St Stephen (Santo Estevam),” Fr V B Monteiro, an islander and history researcher, said.

St Stephen was a Greek-speaking Jew who was stoned to death in Jerusalem shortly after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The earliest tradition places the location of his martyrdom on the northern edge of the Old City, where the present Damascus Gate is located.

St Stephen is known as the patron of stone masons and those who suffer from headaches, and while many in Goa are unaware of his relics on the serene island, ailing devotees have turned up at the church even from distant places like Bengaluru.

“It was much later, in 1925, that Fr Leandro Da Rosa (1885-1957), a son of the village, brought the urn containing the relic of St Stephen to the island,” Monteiro stated. Rosa was a famous priest, popularly known as Padre Mestre Rosa, and held many positions related to theology including chairs of sacramental theology and special dogmatics in the Rachol Seminary.

Jua, Juvem or Sakecho Zunvo (island of vegetables) is primarily renowned across Goa for its bhende (lady’s fingers). “But at one time, the villagers with only agriculture as their source had limited incomes,” an islander said.

Sounding nostalgic, he mentioned some oral traditions, including a popular local saying, “Ekach vistidan chear festam (One dress for four feasts). As our villagers were poor, one dress would suffice for four feasts, Christmas, the feast of the patron the next day, the feast of Christ the King atop the island’s historic fort on Dec 27, and New Year,” he said.

The feast of Christ the King was later moved to Nov, a Sunday prior to Advent.

Rosa had also built the monument of Christ the King atop the hill, a place that offers an amazing 90-degree panoramic view of three Goan talukas: Tiswadi, Ponda and Bicholim, “That is why Rosa’s bust was built at St Anne’s Chapel in St Estevam,” Monteiro said.

When the Zuvenkars embraced Christianity by 1550s, the comunidade of Jua, one of the richest in Tiswadi then, built the first church in 1575, Monteiro said.

The village is one of the biggest islands among seven in the Mandovi basin. “It has lot of history and a few heritage sites and ruins,” a local resident said.