Church in Davao Oriental to digitize historical documents

Most Rev. Bishop Abel Apigo of the Diocese of Mati and ADDU EVP Bong Eliab.

The San Salvador del Mundo Church in Caraga, Davao Oriental is digitizing its important historical documents. This project is made possible with a memorandum of understanding between the Diocese of Mati and the Ateneo de Davao University. The University's Archives will digitize these documents.

The church is 137 years old and is considered the oldest Catholic church in Mindanao. It was established by the Jesuits in 1877 and finished in 1884.

19th century documents written by missionaries will be digitized, which covers 16 volumes and 2,500 pages. The documents include baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths, and financial accounts. These are considered valuable sources of historical and cultural information for the region.

According to Bishop Abel C. Apigo of the Diocese of Mati, "Digitizing these documents will give us a guarantee that we can still have access to the very rich records of the Church. Whenever we have people interested to delve deeper into the rich history of the Local Church of Mati then can use these digital materials which safe-keep every page of the entries of the century-old parish books."

The digitization project is led by the Ateneo de Davao and University Archivist, Pam Castrillo. According to Castrillo, there will be a team assigned to scan and digitize the records. To protect the fragile state of the documents, non-invasive and contactless scanning will be used.

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Source:
Alama, R.I. (2021 August 3). Historic documents in Caraga Church to be digitized. PIA. https://pia.gov.ph/news/2021/08/03/historic-documents-in-caraga-church-to-be-digitized