Cathedral of Our Lady of Arabia to opens doors in Bahrain on Thursday
TDT | Manama
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
The biggest Catholic Cathedral in the Gulf region is all set to open doors in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
The inauguration of the Cathedral of Mary Queen of Arabia will be on Thursday at 11 am by His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, said Bahrain Cathedral.
Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelizations of Peoples, will consecrate the Church on Friday at 10:00 am.
The consecration will be attended only by a small group due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ark-shaped structure, which seats 2,300 people, is on a 9,000 square-meter piece of land donated by His Majesty in February 2013.
One of its main features is a polychrome statue of Our Lady of Arabia placed inside.
Aside from the cathedral, the palm tree-lined complex features a multipurpose building, a courtyard, and a two-story parking area.
The cathedral’s altar, baptistery, pews and other furnishings are from Italy.
The terraced roof comprises three domes, set one above the other, two octagonal and the topmost one with four sides.
The pyramid dome skylights on the roof of the chapels are designed to flood the interiors with natural daylight.
In the four corners of the Cathedral, there are the following four Chapels: the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament (for 160 people), the Chapel of Our Lady of Arabia (also for 160 people), and the Chapel of the Confessionals.
The fourth corner is an access area for elevators to and from the Cathedral and the underground parking zone.
King Hamad personally presented a detailed three-foot-long model of the cathedral to Pope Francis in 2014.
The inauguration of the cathedral follows King Hamad’s official invitation to the pope to visit Bahrain.
The new Church is the second cathedral built in the Apostolic Vicariate (Bahrain, Kuwait and, Saudi Arabia) after the Holy Family in the Desert Cathedral in Madinat al-Kuwait.
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