The master-builder Antão Nogueira de Brito then designed a small chapel on the place, which was a hill called the Monte Santo (Holy Mountain) by the Portuguese.

[2] Over 30 years later, many Goan Catholics were living in Monte Santo and the Portuguese rulers recognized that the settlement needed a separate parish with its own church.

However, there is little information about the construction of the church building, except that it began in 1543 along with two other religious buildings in the city – the Church of Our Lady of the Candles (Portuguese: Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Luz) and the Chapel of Saint Catherine (Portuguese: Capela de Santa Catarina).

On the highest floor of the tower façade, there are light graceful columns in the corners, with window openings on all sides, and suspended bells.

There is a tombstone of a Portuguese woman in the apse with the inscription: Aqui jaz Dona Catarina, mulher de Garcia de Sá, a qual pede a quem isto ler que peça misericórida a Deus para sua alma (Here lies Dona Catarina, wife of Garcia de Sá, who asks whoever reads this to request God to have mercy on her soul).

[5] Below the apse is the tomb of her husband Garcia de Sá (died in June 1549), a Governor of Portuguese India.