Today, we will visit a massive Roman Catholic church of which the construction began 126 years ago and is still in progress to this day. A church unfinished for that long…just unbelievable! The church is named the Sagrada Familia (Expiatory Temple of the Holy Family) and it’s located in Barcelona, Spain. The construction of the church started in 1882 and originally designed by Antoni Gaudi a Spanish Catalan architect. The building works are expected to be completed around 2026 which will be the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. The reason why it’s taking so long to complete this project is because the project is not supported by the government and official church sources. Funding of the project mainly come from private donations and the ticket sales from the tourists.

The Sagrada Familia’s towers are rich in Christianity symbolism. The decoration include works from the liturgy. There are a total of 18 tall towers; the Twelve Apostles, the four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary and of course the tallest of it all is Jesus Christ. These towers are decorated with biblical words such as “Hosanna”,”Excelsis”, and “Sanctus”; the grand doors are engraved with words from the bible in various languages; and there will be a Glory facade to be decorated with the Apostles’ Creed. There is plan to design the sanctuary areas with concepts of saints, virtues and sins, and secular such regions with matching decorations.

If I ever get a chance to visit Spain, this will be the first place that I want to see. The Eiffel tower in Paris is nothing special compare to this historical temple.

Source: Flickr [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]