St. Peter's Catholic Church

St. Peter's Catholic Church was the first Catholic church in Batam. The church has two magnificent stories with a distinctive architectural style, a typical gothic-style church architecture in Europe. The church is able to accommodate up to 1,200 congregations. In addition to the artistic value offered, the church also holds historical values that are important for the Catholics in Batam. Today the church is ordained as one of the places for religious tourism in Batam. Not only domestic tourists have visited this church but also tourists from abroad , such as from Singapore, Malaysia, and so on.

The story of this church was started by several initiatives of Flores migrants, who arrived in Batam in 1959, namely Theodorus Salaka, Moses Moses, Peter Atawolo, and and so on. They wanted to establish a chapel for them to pray every Sunday. And in 1961 a modest chapel was built at a suburban beach in Batu Ampar. The chapel was only made of wood, thatched roofs and sand-floored and named St. Maria.

However problems started to appear in 1969. When foreign companies started their operations in Batam, the local authority demolished the chapel and moved it into a different part of the island, Sei Jodoh. It wasn't easy either for the local Catholic community to build a new chapel there because of a new road project in Sei Jodoh. Finally, with a help from a local Muslim resident, H. R. Muhammad, a new chapel of St. Maria was built on a piece of land, next to Mesjid Agung Batam (the Great Mosque Batam), which he donated.

This chapel was once again moved into a different place when the Batam Authority took over control of the Island of Batam from the Riau Province. The St. Maria Chapel was later moved to Bukit Baloi, where St. Peter's Catholic Church stands today. The name of St. Peter was taken from Bukit Soil's conditions (it is a rocky hill), where Peter itself means "rock". This new bigger church was built in the beginning of December 2005 and was inaugurated on 10 May 2009. St. Peter's Catholic Church has also a "cave" which was opened to the public on 1 November 2006.

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