Cathedral-Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul: a wooden cathedral closed for two decades by termites, reopened as a minor basilica

In Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, the Cathedral-Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul stands on the site of a former theater, “De Verrezene Phoenix” (1809), converted into a Catholic church in 1826. By 1882, the building had become too small and dilapidated for the growing Catholic community, and the diocese decided to build a new cathedral. The foundation stone was laid on 30 January 1883. The building was consecrated on 10 July 1885, with work continuing until 1887, while the two Gothic wooden towers, about 40-44 metres tall to the bronze cross, were completed only around 1901. The architect was Frater Frans Harmes, a Redemptorist priest, who according to some Dutch-language sources was inspired by Redemptorist churches in Roosendaal, in the Netherlands, and in Boston — a detail not confirmed by other independent sources. The cathedral is built almost entirely of wood, with the interior in unpainted Surinamese cedar. According to some tourist sources, not confirmed elsewhere, the facade and pillars would be in “greenheart” wood, a particularly dense and insect-resistant species typical of the Guianas region. It is often described as one of the largest wooden churches in the Americas, a record sometimes shared, according to the most accurate Dutch source consulted, with the Cathedral of St. George in Georgetown, Guyana — the absolute claim of “largest wooden building in the western hemisphere”, repeated by some English-language tourist sources, does not however find a verifiable numerical confirmation. Inside there is a capacity of about 900 seats, three bells (Alphonsus, 222 kg; Rosa, 413 kg; John, 827 kg), and a pipe organ originally with 1,550 pipes, reduced over time due to thefts. A place of particular veneration is the tomb of the blessed Peerke Donders (1809-1887), a Redemptorist priest known for his mission among enslaved people and, later, at the leprosy colony of Batavia. He died on 14 January 1887; his remains were moved to the cathedral cemetery in 1900 and placed in a tomb in the left wing of the church in 1921, while his beatification took place on 23 May 1982 by the hand of Pope John Paul II. A first restoration effort in 1977-1979 proved inadequate, and in 1989 the building was closed due to structural problems and severe termite damage. The real restoration, funded with about 2.8 million euros from the European Development Fund, began concretely in 2007, with the replacement of some structural columns in greenheart wood, and the cathedral was reopened and reconsecrated on 13-14 November 2010, after more than twenty years of closure. Having become the cathedral of the Catholic diocese of Paramaribo at its establishment in 1958, it was raised to the rank of minor basilica on 6 April 2014 by Pope Francis, with the local ceremony presided over by the apostolic nuncio Nicola Girasoli. The cathedral falls within the UNESCO World Heritage site “Historic Inner City of Paramaribo”, inscribed in 2002, as one of its most significant buildings, though without a separate inscription of its own.