The Lazi Church and Convent: A National Cultural Treasure

 

San Isidro Labrador Church: A Siquijor icon since the 1800s

In the quiet town of Lazi, sheltered between the sea and the forested hills of Siquijor, time lingers like incense smoke after Mass — slow, fragrant, and full of memory.

Visitors come to this island with stories already in mind: of healers in hidden huts, of folk remedies passed down from generation to generation. And yet, it is not a healer’s hut that dominates the landscape here, but a grand stone church rising from the earth like a silent guardian – the San Isidro Labrador Church, built not just of coral and wood, but of conviction.

A Mission in Stone

Church construction began in 1884, under the Spanish Recollect missionaries, and was completed three years later. It was established with a purpose that was both spiritual and strategic: to serve a growing Catholic community in Lazi, and to anchor the faith in a place where traditional beliefs and healing customs were deeply embedded into daily life.

Lazi Church’s convento: Once a shelter for friars, now a heritage preserved for generations

From the beginning, the builders turned to the land–or rather, to the sea–for materials. Siquijor’s surrounding reefs supplied coral stones, which were quarried, cut, and stacked to form the church’s massive walls. These stones, bound with lime and sand, were not only durable but naturally suited to the tropical climate: porous enough to breathe, dense enough to endure.

Molave, a native hardwood known for its resistance to termites and decay, was used for beams, floors, and framing. To this day, visitors tread the same original wooden flooring, creaking softly underfoot like a voice from the past.

The Convento

Across from the church stands the Lazi Convent, completed in 1887 and known locally as the convento. It was once the resting place for elderly friars and a hub for religious missions. As shared by Siquijor’s tourism officer Luis Borongan, it was Fr. Toribio Sánchez who opened its doors to fellow missionaries seeking respite in their final years.

Today, it serves as a heritage museum, keeping the island’s ecclesiastical past alive. 

The convento also remains one of the largest and best-preserved convents in the Philippines. Its structure mirrors not only Spanish design but Filipino soul. Modeled after the ‘bahay na bato,’ the convent was built with the same coral stone base, topped by an upper floor of hardwood. It features a silong (an open space underneath), capiz-shell windows, and a roofline that lifts into the sky like a prayer.

Inside, the silence feels sacred. The air carries the scent of aged wood and stone warmed by the sun. It’s the same scent, one imagines, that filled the halls over a century ago when it housed missionaries, schoolchildren, and now, the echoes of a community’s past.

The Lazi Church has been a spiritual refuge for the island’s Catholics since 1887

When Faith Meets the Mystical

Siquijor is often called the “Healing Island,” and not without reason. Animistic practices here remain alive – herbalists, spiritual cleansing rituals, and a reverence for the unseen. But to reduce the island to its mystical folklore alone is to miss the larger picture. For many residents, the church is not in conflict with these traditions – it is complementary.

“The healing side of the island is not telling you to detach from who you believe in,” said tourism officer Luis Nathaniel Borongan. He explained that the island’s healing traditions are not about changing what you believe, but deepening it.

Here, belief is not a line drawn in the sand, but a river that flows in many directions. The church offers structure and sacrament. The healers offer ritual and remembrance. Both are rooted in belief – one that is personal, communal, and uniquely Siquijodnon.

United in Stone and Spirit

The island of Siquijor has long been a meeting point for migrants from Bohol, Cebu, and neighboring islands. In its early years, these settlers brought with them their own dialects, customs, and ways of life. What they found in common, over time, was Catholicism – and at its heart, the San Isidro Labrador Church.

“The Catholic faith merged us to who we are,” Borongan shared. “Now, when you go to a fiesta, you can visit a house and the visitors are composed of people from all parts of the island”. It is a quiet testimony to how shared belief can shape a shared identity.

Walking the convento’s museum transports you through centuries of faith

A Future Rooted in Heritage

Declared a National Cultural Treasure and a National Historical Landmark, the Lazi Church and Convent have also become a focal point for heritage tourism and conservation. Through the support of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and local efforts, restoration work continues, preserving not only walls and wood but memory and meaning.

Tourism has played its part too. Visitors who walk through the convent museum, who stand beneath the soaring arches of the church nave, often leave more hushed than they arrived. There’s something about the space – its scale, its stillness – that invites reverence, no matter what you believe.

In a land of herbal tonics and chanted cures, where balete trees are believed to vibrate with power, the San Isidro Labrador Church and Convent offer a different kind of healing – one rooted in community, in ritual, and in the faith that something sacred can be built from the ground up, one coral stone at a time.

Article and video script: John Mari A. Marcelo

Video: Grilled Cheese Studios

Photos: Paolo Correa, John Marcelo