The Regional Secretary for Education, Science and Culture, Luiz Fagundes Duarte, defended in Angra do Heroísmo that the Azores should have a "complete and accurate" cultural heritage inventory.

Being the starting point for an in-depth knowledge of regional cultural heritage, the inventory should comprise all public and private heritage items that are "worthy of being classified, protected and disseminated," stressed Luiz Fagundes Duarte. The government official talked to journalists after the end of the signing ceremony of a cooperation protocol between the Regional Secretary for Education, Science and Culture, and the Diocese of Angra do Heroísmo.

In the context of the Government's policy for Culture, the knowledge on the existing heritage is "beneficial to all." With the protocol signed today, it will be possible "to know the heritage of our churches as well as its real value and the measures that should be adopted for its preservation," Luiz Fagundes Duarte.

According to the government official, "some parishes have carried out some interventions in movable and immovable heritage, surely with good intentions," but "without complying with criteria that should respect the preservation, restoration and maintenance of cultural heritage."

With the signing of this protocol, whose works will take place until 2017, the Government of the Azores will be responsible for collaborating in the inventory as well as in the conservation and dissemination of cultural heritage. Furthermore, it will provide training on heritage and conservation to priests and members of churchwarden commission.

In turn, the Diocese of Angra do Heroísmo will be required to present the Cultural Heritage Inventorying Project within a deadline of two years. The project will apply for EU support, which may reach a maximum amount of one million Euros.