During our visit to Córdoba, we came across the Royal Church of Saint Paul, one of the most outstanding of the city’s center. It is among the first to be established by the Dominican Monks in Spain. It became an important house of study in which great missionaries were developed, such as Brother Francisco de Córdoba, First Martyr of the Evangelization in the Americas, Brother Tomás de San Martín, who placed the first stone of the University of Hispanola and founded the University of Lima (Peru) and Brother Jerónimo de Loaysa, first archbishop of Lime (Peru).
According to information available, construction of this temple began in the early XIV century, but as has been the norm for many cathedrals and churches, over time they suffer diverse restorations. Up to the XIX century, this had been the Convent – church of the Dominican Monks, later passing onto the Religious Order of the Heart of Mary, which renovated the structure in the XX century. Its facade and entrance caught our eye and attention. The main gateway present “solomonic” (or spiral shaped) columns with a statue of Saint Paul dated to the early XVIII century. The actual temples facade has a mannerism styled gateway of the XVI century. It has an interior rectangular shape consisting of three naves with apses. A peculiarity of the Saint Paul’s Church is its Chimes installed in the early part of the XX century in the belfrey. After much time without it actually functioning, it was finally restored and re-inaugurated on June 29, 1998.
