Malindi chapel withstands five centuries of upheavals

By AMOS KAREITHI

The miniature makuti thatched hut sandwiched between the towering palm trees and white washed magnificent buildings, resemble a dwarf whose growth stagnated in early childhood.

Except for the simple rusty cross, implanted on top of the roof, the windowless building makes no pretence of offering spiritual guidance to troubled souls. The small compound, beautified by phoenix flowers and exotic trees, is crowded with graves and tombstones, which give a visitor a feeling of suffocation despite the occasional breeze brushing its white walls.

The chapel’s pulpit as it has always been, with some literature on the chapel. A front view of the small chapel. [ PHOTOS: AMOS KAREITHI/STANDARD]

The flowers once planted by grieving relatives must have weathered eons ago, and replaced more than a 100 times. None of the original flowers exist.

Despite the many storms and the rough waves which have battered the shoreline only a stone’s throw away, the social and political upheavals as well as natural calamities like the dreaded plague witnessed along the East Coast have left no lasting impression on the building. It has been more than 500 years since the foundation of East Africa’s oldest Christian Church was laid by some of Portugal’s finest sailors who were on a mission to establish the shortest route to India.

Welcome to Malindi’s Portuguese Church that has withstood the test of time since 1500, when Vasco Da Gama first ventured in Mombasa and later sought refuge in Malindi. The chapel’s impregnable walls, almost a metre thick, are made of coral stones and cemented together with limestone and give a simplistic appearance that bellies’ the fears its founders and consequent followers experienced in those heady days.

Concerned by the suspicious looks cast by the locals and aware of the dangers by the roaring waves of the Indian Ocean that brought temperamental slave traders and other merchants, the chapel’s architects devised a way of spying on their enemies. "The constructors were more concerned of the security than their comfort. They therefore sacrificed ventilation and omitted out any windows. As you can see the only aperture is an opening high up on the left side of the wall," explains Kasim Keya Charo.

The opening was never designed to give the worshippers a view of the beach and neither was it meant to allow circulation of air inside but was placed high up on the wall such that one had to climb on a table to peep inside. "It is wide inside and very narrow outside. It is almost undetectable from outside the church. When it was being regularly used some worshipers must have stood guard, peering through the spy hole as their colleagues prayed," Charo adds.

The identities of the builders of the church are obscured by the inevitable tear and wear due to the passage of time. Also, Malindi’s historical accounts are some of the oldest settlements in these parts of Africa that also reveal little of when and why it was constructed.

Establishment of church

What is not in doubt is that Vasco Da Gama’s first visit to Malindi in April 1897 was fruitful, and by the time he departed from the town on April 24, he had established cordial relations with the Sultan of Malindi who offered fresh supplies and a navigator who helped Portugal and by extension Europe establish a direct route to India.

Impressed by the reception he had received in Malindi compared to the hostility in Mombasa, Vasco Da Gama visited Malindi in his subsequent trips on his way from India and was granted permission for the establishment of a church. Esmond Bradely Martin in his book, Malindi Past and Present explains that at the time the town was quite prosperous going by the affluence displayed by the King who met Vasco Da Gama.

He writes: "He wore an elaborate gown made of magnificent silk, trimmed with gold satin. His turban was of rich cloth. An old African who followed him carried his sword in a silver sheath. His chair was decorated with brass and covered with silk cushions. He was followed by musicians playing trumpets and horns."

At the time the Sultan’s palace was close to the sea front on the hill near the golf club. Then, the town had a population of 6,000 people, out of which 4,000 lived within the town; mostly Arabs who were the masters while the local communities resided in the outskirts. After the church was constructed, one of the most celebrated Christians to make use of it was San Francisco de Xavier, the Jesuit missionary and saint, popularly known as St Francis Xavier, on his way to West Indies. During his visit of the town in 1542, he mentioned it in a letter he later sent to the Pope in Rome, indicating that he had buried one of the sailors who died in his ship.

Give up religion

He captured a conversation he had with one of the Arabs living in Malindi at the time who allegedly lamented that the residents were not very religious as only three out of the 17 mosques were being used. "The religious leader of the town complained that if the prophet did not appear in the next three years, he would give up his religion," the Arab is quoted to have told St Xavier. This perhaps explains why the Portuguese were allowed to construct a chapel at that time in a place that was predominantly Muslim: where close to 20 mosques were serving the town’s population.

At the time St Francis Xavier sojourned in Malindi, he was on a torturous journey from Lisbon, which had taken him through Mozambique and in the process left him afflicted by a severe attack of fever. Given that he arrived in Goa on May 6, 1542, it is possible he had departed Malindi at around April 18, for at the time it took about 20 days to sail from Malindi to India. After 470 years, the evidence of the saint’s visit to Malindi still lingers, immortalised by the tombstone indicating where he interred the remains of his sailor.

The tomb, unpainted and without any epitaph, stands just outside the spy hole which serves as the only window to the church, right on the path leading to the only entrance. When the Portuguese decided to shift from Malindi to Mombasa in 1593, the town’s fortunes dwindled. "During that period, the chapel was described as ruined and deserted and no history can be ascribed to it for 300 years. Its graveyard too was disused, J S Ross, explains in his book, Malindi Museum Society, A Brief History of the Portuguese Chapel and Vasco Da Gama’s Pillar.

Ross further says the town and the chapel gained prominence after the entry of the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEA) into the East Coast of Africa in 1894. When one of the IBEA’s administrators, J Bell-Smith was posted to Malindi and died in office, his remains were buried at the chapel’s graveyard on September 1 1894. Two other sailors were buried in the same year. The last recorded burial at the graveyard was in 1958, when one Lynette, daughter of Xavier Vaz, was interred there. Now the graveyard’s gates are permanently locked, only opened by museum officials to tourists.

The graveyard has now been filled up but the chapel with its sitting capacity of 30 worshippers still nourishes the people spiritually as every February Catholic faithful congregate in remembrance of St Francis Xavier. A picture of his embalmed body, lying in state, is prominently displayed at the pulpit, cluttered with other religious and historic literature offering information about the origin of the church to the tourists who flock the place.

Unlike modern buildings where worshippers deposit their offertory in containers such as baskets, the church has an offertory box etched in one of its walls. The boxlike depression in the wall, the pupil and the thick walls are some of the few characters of the church that have remained unchanged throughout the 500 years of its existence. The National Museum of Kenya officials explain it was replaced as it was made of wood, which rotted during its 300 years of neglect.

The chapel, like Malindi town and many other ancient towns, has changed hands from Portuguese to British and then Africans but it has never shed off its history that is entwined with that of the fierce navigator, Vasco Da Gama, who opened the Indian Ocean sea route to India and forever changed the destiny of the people. Despite surviving 500 years of hard living and upheavals the chapel has been unable to capture as many souls of the locals like St Francis Xavier did in West Indies because Malindi residents have remained predominantly Muslim.

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