Rosary Basilica (Bandel)

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Facade of the basilica
Shrine of Mary on the gallery roof

The Rosary Basilica ( English Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary ) or Bandelkirche is a Roman Catholic church in Bandel , a city in the east Indian state of West Bengal north of Calcutta . The Church in the Archdiocese of Calcutta is under the invocation of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of St. Rosary consecrated to the Mother of God and bears the title of a minor basilica .

history

The port of Bandel on the Hugli River was used by the Portuguese as a trading post from the middle of the 16th century, from which a town emerged from 1571 with the permission of the Mughal emperor Akbar I. In 1599 the Portuguese built the first church in Bengal together with a monastery here. After the conquest by the Mughals in 1632, the whole trading post was burned down and the 4,000 inhabitants were deported to Agra or killed. The displaced were able to return in 1640 and rebuild the post. In 1661 Gomez de Soto completed the new church, which was looked after by an Augustinian monastery until the 19th century. In 1928 the Salesians of Don Bosco came . In 1988 the church, which is also important as a pilgrimage center, was raised to the rank of a minor basilica by Pope John Paul II .

architecture

The church was built as a three-aisled basilica . To the left of the facade, the five-storey, square bell tower with its pyramid roof reaches a height of 24 meters. In front of the main entrance a gallery was built in 1910 at the height of the church roof, on which there is a chapel with the statue of Mary of the Good Journey, which is said to come from the first church. The interior of the church has three altars, the main altar shows Mary of the Rosary, the others show statues of Jesus and John Bosco . The church has a small organ.

On the right side of the basilica is the former monastery. The foundation stone from 1599 has been preserved at the eastern entrance to the monastery. In front of the church there is a ship's mast , which a Portuguese captain is said to have erected here as a votive offering after a heavy storm in the Bay of Bengal.

Web links

Commons : Rosary Basilica  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary on gcatholic.org
  2. ↑ a b Rangan Datta: Next Weekend You Can Be At Bandel. The Telegraph Kolkata, January 9, 2011, accessed March 11, 2019 .
  3. ↑ A short history of Bandel Basilica (English)
  4. ↑ a b Bandel Church on hooghly.nic.in (English)

Coordinates: 22 ° 55 '8.2 "  N , 88 ° 23' 42.7"  E