Immaculate Conception Cathedral, Apia

Immaculate Conception Cathedral
The new cathedral in 2016
Location	Apia
Country	Samoa
Denomination	Roman Catholic Church
Administration
Archdiocese	Archdiocese of Samoa–Apia

The Immaculate Conception Cathedral, also called Cathedral of Apia or Mulivai Cathedral, is the name that receives a religious building affiliated to the Catholic Church that is in Apia the capital of Samoa a insular country in Oceania. The temple suffered damages in the earthquake of 2009 reason why it has undergone a process of restoration and extension.

The congregation follows the Roman or Latin rite and is the mother church of the Archdiocese of Samoa–Apia (Latin: Archidioecesis Samoa–Apiana; Samoan: Fa'aAkiepikopo Samoa–Apia) which was created in 1966 by Pope Paul VI through the bull "Prophetarum voes".

The new cathedral of Apia was opened to the public on 2 June 2014, after three years of repairs, with the presence of Archbishop Martin Krebs, apostolic nuncio in New Zealand. The church was rebuilt on the site of the original cathedral dating from 1857.

In 1852, William Pritchard sold to Bishop Bataillon a plot of land in Mulivai, about three-quarters of an acre, and his brother Jacques began there building a church and a parish house. The church was standing in the same place as the current one, while the residence was near Mulivai. The first stone was blessed by the bishop on 8 December 1852, but work was interrupted by epidemics, and a hurricane in 1854, which destroyed eight ships and caused great damage to the plantations, resulted in problems in the food supply. So that only in 1857, the original church was completed.