In East India, a Marian shrine draws in Christian, Hindu and Muslim pilgrims

BANDEL, India (RNS) — Each week for the last 13 years, 28-year-old Rimpa Chowdhury, who describes herself as a devout Hindu, has visited the Basilica of the Holy Rosary — a historic 16th-century Catholic church on the banks of the Hooghly River in eastern India with a shrine to the Virgin Mary.

For Chowdhury, the Bandel Church, as it is known locally, is more than a place where her prayers have been answered. Its vast riverside grounds, 50 miles north of Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, are where she has found community and peace.

“There’s something about this place,” said Chowdhury, wearing a loose green tunic. “A shrine becomes something else when a woman has power over it.”

Over decades, thousands of pilgrims — the majority of them Muslims and Hindus — have been visiting the basilica for feast days every year, led by what they call the “power of the divine feminine” — their belief in the power of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Against its grand façade, featuring soaring arches and a vaulted-ceiling nave of ancient murals, a statue of Mary, “Our Lady of Happy Voyage,” stands out as the main attraction. Sailors and travelers visit her shrine frequently, praying for protection from danger. In 1988, Pope John Paul II declared the historic sanctuary a minor basilica, recognizing the church’s spiritual significance.

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