Magellan's Cross

Magellan's Cross is a Christian cross planted by Portuguese, and Spanish explorers as ordered by Ferdinand Magellan upon arriving in Cebu in the Philippines on (depending on source) April 14 or 21, 1521. Magellan planted a cross to signify this important event about the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith in what is now Cebu, in central Philippines. The original cross is reputedly encased in another wooden cross for protection, as people started chipping it away in the belief that it had miraculous healing powers.

his prompted the government officials to encase it in tindalo wood and secured it inside a small chapel called "kiosk." Some say, however, that the original cross was actually destroyed. The Magellan cross displayed here is said to be a replica of such cross. It is housed in a small chapel located in front of the present city hall of Cebu, along Magallanes Street (named in honor of Magellan).

Sadly, Magellan met his death under the hands of another Visayan chief, Lapu-Lapu, when he went to the nearby island of Mactan. Mactan is also part of today's Metropolitan Cebu. There, both the statues of Magellan and Lapu-Lapu proudly stand to commemorate the tragic meeting of east and west in this part of the world.
It took another 45 years (1565) before Cebu was visited again by another European. Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, under orders from King Philip of Spain, came and made Cebu the first capital of the Spanish colony known as Las Islas Filipinas.