HomeAntipolo Cathedral, officially the International Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage (Nuestra Señora de la Paz y Buen Viaje), is the seat of the Diocese of Antipolo and one of the country’s most celebrated Marian pilgrimage churches, set in Antipolo City, Rizal, in the highlands east of Manila. Antipolo has long styled itself the “Pilgrimage Capital of the Philippines,” and this shrine is the reason why.
The Jesuits established the first church here in 1591 under Fr. Juan de Salazar and administered the parish until 1768. Its treasured image — a dark, black wooden Madonna — was carried across the Pacific from Acapulco aboard the galleon El Almirante, arriving in Manila in 1626 with Governor-General Juan Niño de Tabora before it was enshrined at Antipolo. Credited with guarding the perilous Manila–Acapulco galleon crossings, on which it sailed repeatedly, the Virgin earned her title of a “good voyage.” By local tradition the image was repeatedly found atop a tipolo tree — the spot where the church now stands and the source of the city’s name.
A shrine of national and international standing
Declared a National Shrine in 1954 and elevated to a cathedral in 1983, Antipolo was proclaimed an International Shrine effective March 25, 2023 — the first in the Philippines and Southeast Asia — with the solemn declaration held in January 2024. The revered image had earlier received a pontifical coronation authorized by Pope Pius XI, crowned in 1926.
Devotion peaks each May, with a thanksgiving celebration on the first Tuesday of the month opening a pilgrimage season that runs to the first Tuesday of July. Best known is the Alay Lakad — an overnight walking pilgrimage in which the faithful trek through the night from Metro Manila to reach the shrine. See the weekly Mass schedule below and get directions to plan your visit.