HISTORY
Formation community of the Student Brothers and the seat of the Provincial Center of Institutional Studies
Three of the founding Fathers of the Province led by Fray Antonio de Arcediano OP, took the patache San Martin from Acapulco to Macau on 3 April 1587 hoping to enter China as soon as possible. After suffering shipwreck near the Chinese coast, they nally arrived in the Portuguese enclave on 1 September of the same year. The Lord Provisor of the Diocese donated his own house for the future Convent and Church of the Friars under the advocate of Sancta Maria de Rosario. The friars accepted the donation on 16 October 1587. The foundation was accepted during the First Provincial Chapter in 1588 making it the second oldest foundation after the Mother House of Santo Domingo Convent of Manila.
By March of 1588, the friars received an order from the Portuguese viceroy of Goa sending the Spanish friars into exile to India and the property con scated.
Despite diplomatic and ecclesiastical representations to recuperate the foundation in behalf of the Province, leading to a de nite decision of the General Chapter of the Order in 1612, the property was not returned and instead the Portuguese Dominicans from Goa were asked to assume the Macau foundation. The Portuguese Dominicans maintained the presence in Macau until the suppression of the religious orders in the beginning of the XIX century. The Dominican community also became an important link between Macau and the Missions in Timor Leste. During this period, despite of cial animosity against the Spanish missionaries, the Portuguese friars welcomed their confreres eeing persecutions from mainland China. When the Procuration of the missions in Guangzhou could not continue, the friars had to organize the Procuration in the enclave to facilitate the sending of material assistance to the missions in China and in Tunkin. The presence of the Spanish Dominicans came to an end in 1860 when it was decided that the Procuration be moved to Hong Kong.
Though there would be no permanent presence of the Order in Macau until the end of the XX century, Macau had always welcomed the friars in times of wars and crisis. In 1898, the friars sought refuge in Macau during the Philippine revolution and in 1945 during the liberation of Hong Kong by the end of the World War II. After the communist liberation of China, which ended in 1949, Macau received the Spanish Dominican Sisters in 1953 as they ed the mainland. These Sisters maintained a very important Dominican presence in the diocese for their social and educational ministry.
As early as 1993, the Dominican friars initiated the plan to have a presence in Macau and and a community was established in 1995. The house, under the name of ‘São Domingos’ evoking the old and glorious foundation of the past, was canonically erected on 3 May, 1996. The community of friars assumed the work of administration of the Diocesan school “Escola São Paolo” and collaborate in the pastoral ministries of the Diocese.
With the resurgence of Asian vocations, the Province decided to establish the Students’ community and formation house in Macau in conjunction with the organization of the Faculty of Theology at the IIUM (now University of Saint Jose). Thus, the formation house was organized in 2006. The House was later raised as a Priory on 7 October 2008.
In 2010, the St. Dominic Center of Studies or the Provincial Studium was canonically established at the Priory to further promote the intellectual foundation of our vocations.
