Church of N. S. dos Remédios [Our Lady of Remedies] (Fernando de Noronha, PE)

On 24 June 1503, early in Brazil’s colonisation, the Portuguese Fernan de Loronha, known as Fernão de Noronha and a member of the Portuguese court, discovered an archipelago. He soon received it as a donation from King D. Manuel.

As a result of the date of its discovery, the archipelago was initially called São João [St John], and its development and settlement were under the charge of the Pernambuco captaincy.

In 1612, according to a record left by Capuchin Fr Cláudio de Abbeville, besides a Portuguese, sixteen to eighteen Indians, both male and female, who had been deported by the inhabitants of Pernambuco lived on the island.

After the settlement of the island of Fernando de Noronha, a church began to be built there in 1737 in praise of Our Lady of Remedies. In 1772, the chancel was built, and the work was completed in 1774.

Built on high ground with its façade facing a cove, the Church of Our Lady of Remedies, both its exterior and interior, is very simple. Despite this, during the time that the island functioned as the old state prison, the small temple represented the main prison church.

The temple was restored in 1891, when Colonel Joaquim de Gusmão Coelho commanded the Fernando de Noronha prison. The building gained further restorations in 1915 and 1919. Finally in 1988, under the supervision of the Pernambuco Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage, the church was revitalised, acquiring new paint and a lighting network.


Recife, 5 December 2003.
(Updated on 26 December 2007).
Translated by Peter Leamy, November 2016.

sources consulted

SILVA, Leonardo Dantas. Pernambuco preservado. Recife: Edição do Autor, 2002

how to quote this text

Source: VAINSENCHER, Semira Adler. Igreja de N. S. dos Remédios, Fernando de Noronha, PE.Pesquisa Escolar Online, Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife. Disponível em: <https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/en/>. Acesso em: dia  mês ano. Ex: 6 ago. 2009.