Centuries-Old Churches in Olinda and Recife Suffer from Decay

08/25/2015 - 09h10

The one who wants to know, from the inside, temples that have already been a scenery of Brazil´s history will have to rely on luck. With precarious structures, a lack of security and a few staff, most of the historic churches of Recife and Olinda are closed most of the time.

In two days, the report toured 25 churches in the historic center of the two cities and found 16 of them with their doors closed. Seven are sealed off because of structure problems, but only three were in work. The other nine left are just available for masses, otherwise they don´t have a fixed time to be functional.

The chairman of the culture committee of the Archdiocese of Olinda and Recife, Friar Rinaldo, says that some of these churches should be open on the days and times visited by the report and that he will determine why they weren´t.

On the weekends, they´re only open at mass times. "The downtowns are empty, and the main problem is security", he said.

The degraded structure is another problem. There are pieces of fallen plaster, broken glass, graffiti on the facades, infiltration and even branches rising up the walls.

In 2013, five churches of Recife and three of Olinda were included in the Historical Cities PAC (Growing Acceleration Program, for its acronym in Portuguese), which allocated R$ 171 million (approximately US$ 48.1 million) to restoration projects in the state of Pernambuco.

But two years later, only three of the eight churches are in work.

The Olinda municipality reported that the projects for the churches of Bonfim and São Pedro are ready and awaiting authorization to bid the work. The URB (Recife Urbanization Company) said that the churches of Carmo and São José do Ribamar are in project contracting stage.

Translated by DENISE MOTA

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