1752
The cross-shaped church completed
In 1752 the brick church was finished, built in the form of a cross and facing east toward the rising sun, the work begun by Fr Buttari and carried to completion by Fr Clement Thomassini. The parish's own history records that in Thomassini's time the great Feast of the Assumption took root here as its principal festival. Bertrand, writing from within the mission, gives this church a different titular feast: St Francis Xavier's, kept with a great novena every December.
Parish traditionThis moment rests on 5 sources.
What this source establishes
The parish's own English history — and the source that corrects the page: this church was built of BROAD BRICKS FROM PERUNGUDI, not of stone. Its date is said to rest on two inscriptions inside the old church, which nobody on this project has seen.