This has to be one of the more bizarre places I have seen. A catholic priest came to Medan from India and built this shrine to both the Christian and Hindu religions. Maybe he was trying to make the locals feel more welcome because it looked like something they were familiar with.
This the Church/Shrine - it does not look like a catholic church at all!
The official name is the Marian Shrine of our Lady of Good Health.
The are little scenes around the perimeters of the property.
The building looks very much like a Hindu temple.
The figures in white at the bottom look very much like dragons.
On the inside facing part of the walkways there are numbered scenes depicting the creation.
The bottom of photo shows depiction of Adam and Eve being evicted from the Garden of Eden.
This is the entry to the bottom floor of the structure. We did not want to take off our shoes, so did not go in.
St. Francis
The main sanctuary on the 2nd floor. Also shoes off.
One of the Bible verses as shown in photo above that run along the sides of the balconies.
Stained glass window on first floor.
The chancel or front of the church.
Hindu meets Christian.
One of the stained glass windows on the balcony level. The person attending to Jesus looks very Indian.
A panel looking very white man.
Now with Indian influence.
The pope in a lotus flower.
I had seen this Indian Nun walking around the property with another person, stopping every now and again to pick up trash on the ground. Then she came up to us showing us a photo on her phone of the 4 of us at the Iftar meal from the night before. One of Lisa's staff, Anna, had recommended we come her and had notified her friend the nun that we were coming. One of her first postings as a nun was to this facility. And she has been here every since.
The nun kept insisting we should go inside this building as it told the story of some miracle. But, again you had to take off your shoes, so we did not.
I think this might be a water tower, but not sure.
The outside of the building was interesting as well. You could see the stained glass windows on the balcony level of the church better.
Another scene from the other side of the building. The building to the right is a restaurant - not open today.
As we left the compound I took a photo of this Hindu goddess on the front gate.
As I said at the beginning - the concept of this building seems pretty alien to me. It makes much more sense to me if it was a Hindu priest who built this structure to include Christian as well as Hindu concepts. Hindu's are happy to include Jesus as one of their gods in their temples.
No comments:
Post a Comment