Erected a parish on 16 October 1880 with the advocacy of Nuestra Señora de Providencia (Our Lady of Divine Providence), Maria was once part of the Siquijor parish. The Church of Santa Maria in Siquijor is made of stone and sports a simple design in its facade. On the right side of the Church is a hexagonal belfry, which probably doubled as a watch tower during olden times, used to warn the locals of impending attacks from the sea by Moro raiders.

One intriguing aspect of the Santa Maria Church, not to be missed by those lured to Siquijor’s mysticism, is a statue of Santa Rita de Cascia (also referred to as Santa Rita de Siquijor). The statue can be found encased in a glass box at the right side of the main altar. The statue has become the subject of visitors’ curiosity and local myth because of its frightening appearance. The image of Santa Rita is displayed wearing all black with an intense look in her eyes, dark skin around her eyes, and morbid expression. She is holding a skull and a cross (which others say used to be held inverted) on her right hand.

“She is sometimes called “Black Magic Mary” on the place where the statue was, in a place where there are many abandoned churches and undiscovered caves that some others say have become the realm of bad spirits, and that island is called Siquijor. She holds a skull that, according to legend, belonged to a woman’s husband whom she killed for reasons nobody in the island seems to know. She also holds an inverted cross.

The statue, according to local myth, sometimes walks in the evening, and then returns to the church before sunrise. The local church goers say that they see that she still has dirt on her feet from her walk during the night,” exerpts from Giallo Antico blog (see photo).

Santa Rita de Cascia was born in Roccaporena, Italy in 1381. She spent 18 years of her life living with a defiant husband who was later on killed in a vendetta. Within that year, her two sons died. Rita became a nun and received the wound of Christ on her forehead in 1441, as though she had been wearing a crown of thorns. Santa Rita de Cascia is known as the patroness of impossible causes, battered wife, difficult marriages, sickness, widows, wounds.

Location Map

The Santa Maria Church is located in the town of Maria in Siquijor.