Cebu Cathedral Museum

Cebu Cathedral Museum

Cebu Cathedral Museum is an ecclesiastical museum of the Archdiocese of Cebu. The building itself doesn't have an exact information when it was constructed because the archdiocesan archives were burned along with the Cathedral and the Archbishop's Palace during the trial bombing of the U.S. forces in September 1944. But according to some historian, it was built by Bishop Santos Gomez Marañon during mid-1800s.  Bishop Marañon was known as a church builder.  He designed the Metropolitan Cathedral and other religious structures in the province of Cebu.

Cebu Cathedral Museum entrance fee
This museum is a few meters away from the cathedral.

Cebu Cathedral Museum opening hours

The History of Cebu: The first gallery contains photographs showing how Catholic grew in Cebu. Then, the second gallery has the collection of memorabilia of His Eminence Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal; which includes religious books, the vestments worn during his Episcopal ordination, ring from his predecessor Julio Cardinal Rosales and some golden and silver coins (I don't know what it symbolizes). The fourth gallery contains different saints which are from different private individuals. The fifth has a collections of religious chalices, ciboriums, cruets, monstrances and vestments. There were still a lot of tiny pieces which I have no idea what are those.

The structure of the museum is an example of bahay-na-bato and was based on bahay kubo architecture. The materials like bamboo and sawali were perfectly created and decorated for the walls; hardwood trunks for the posts; Capiz shells for the wide windows.