Holy Redeemer Cathedral: built from bricks that once weighed down mahogany ships, its onion domes later swapped for plain steeples

In Belize City, the Jesuit mission in British Honduras was established in 1851, with Father Eustace du Peyron, S.J., arriving from Jamaica as the first resident Jesuit, charged with having a church, a rectory and a school built: this is the origin of the parish of the Holy Redeemer. A first church, built in 1853, was destroyed on 17 July 1856 by the «Great Northside Fire» that swept the northern quarter of the city. Work on the present building began in 1857 on the same site and the new church was blessed in 1858, built of brick recovered largely from the ballast of the sailing ships that carried logwood and mahogany to England, with interior elements of local mahogany. The two original towers were crowned by onion domes in Byzantine style, replaced by pyramidal spires in the early years of the twentieth century. Side chapels and altars were added in 1862, a clerestory in 1888, and a major building campaign ran between 1924 and 1929 under Bishop Murphy, with Father Tenk, S.J., as builder. The sanctuary was enlarged in 1893 in view of cathedral status, and the church was consecrated as a cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Redeemer, in 1894. The ecclesiastical circumscription was erected as the apostolic prefecture of British Honduras on 10 June 1888, raised to an apostolic vicariate in 1893, renamed apostolic vicariate of Belize on 15 December 1925, raised to the diocese of Belize on 29 February 1956 with David Francis Hickey, S.J., as first bishop, renamed diocese of Belize City and Belmopan in 1970, after Belmopan became the capital, and finally diocese of Belize City-Belmopan on 31 December 1983. The church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Belmopan became a co-cathedral in 1970, while Holy Redeemer remains the principal seat of the diocese. The see is vacant today: Bishop Lawrence Sydney Nicasio led the diocese from 26 January 2017 until his death on 1 January 2024, and no successor has been appointed. Hurricane Hattie, which on 31 October 1961 devastated Belize City as a category 4 storm, damaging about 70 per cent of the buildings in the city and leaving more than 10,000 people homeless, and leading to the decision to move the capital to the new city of Belmopan, also destroyed the wooden floor of the cathedral, later replaced with concrete and tiles, along with numerous stained-glass windows and a monument to the first bishop of the diocese. No structural damage to walls, roof or towers is documented. No specific documented link exists between the building and the colonial history of British Honduras, the independence of Belize in 1981, or the territorial dispute with Guatemala. Pope John Paul II visited Belize in 1983, the first papal visit to the country, an event associated with the cathedral in the chronology kept by the parish itself, although the specific details of his presence in the building are not confirmed. In April 2001 Bishop Osmond Peter Martin opened the Monsignor Facundo Castillo Diocesan Centre, next to the cathedral, alongside a restoration campaign whose exact extent is not documented.