The Bandel Church is one of the oldest Christian churches in West Bengal, India. It stands as a memorial to the Portuguese settlement in Bengal. Built around 1660, it is dedicated to Nossa Senhora di Rozario, Our Lady of the Rosary. It is one of the most prominent historical churches in West Bengal.
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…the Portuguese church, which is now the great sight of modern Bandel. This, the oldest Christian place of worship in Bengal, if not in India, was founded in 1599, the year in which Queen Elizabeth sanctioned the establishment of the East India Company. It was burnt in the sack of Hooghly by the Moors in 1632, but the keystone with the date 1599 was preserved and built into the gate of the new church erected by John Comes de Soto in 1661. It is dedicated to Nossa Senhora di Rosario and contains a monastery once occupied by Augustinian friars, the last of whom died in 1869… Some 380 bigghahs of land, out of the 777 granted rent-free by Shah Jehan, are still enjoyed… Every November the church is thronged with pilgrims during the Novena of Notre Dame de Bon Voyage. [1]
Around the middle of the 16th century, the Portuguese began using Bandel as a port. During or around 1571, they were given permission by Akbar, the Mughal emperor, to build a town in Hooghly. As they began settling around the area, their priests began to baptise the natives - by 1598, Catholics in Hooghly numbered around five thousand, including natives and mixed races.
In 1579, the Portuguese built a port on the banks of the Hooghly, as well as a fort, and enlisted the services of a band of Augustinian Friars, then the largest religious body in Goa. The following year, Captain Pedro Tavares obtained the emperor's full permission to preach the Catholic faith publicly, and erect churches. Thus the Bandel Church was constructed in 1599.
This first church was burnt down during the sacking of Hooghly by the Moors in 1632. A newer church, constructed by Gomez de Soto (also spelt John Comes de Soto), was built over the ruin in 1660. The keystone of the older church can still be seen on the eastern gate of the monastery.
A ship's mast stands in front of the church; it was presented to the church by the captain of a vessel that had encountered a storm in the Bay of Bengal, and its rescue was attributed to Mary. The church has three altars, several tombstones, an organ, and a shrine to Mary.
St. Francis Church, in Kochi, Kerala, built in 1503, is the oldest European church in India[2][3]
St. Thomas supposedly built a small church, now known as St. Thomas Church at Palayur, a town now in Thrissur District, Kerala, around 52 AD. The Palayur church still stands at the same site and is considered the oldest church in India. But the wooden walls of the old church were destroyed with time. In the 17th century Reverend Fenichi enclosed the original church with a new outer building but the original altar consecrated by St. Thomas still remains at this site.[4]
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