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| The Milagres Church, Mangalore, India alamy.com |
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| The Milagres Church, Mangalore, India tripadvisor.com |
The Milagres Church (Portuguese: Igreja de Nossa Senhora dos Milagres, English: Church of Our Lady of Miracles) was first built in 1680 by Bishop Thomas de Castro, a Theatine from Divar, Goa. Quite famous for its beautiful architecture, the church has an impressive altar with eye-catching French painting of St Monica and St Augustine. yet another attractive feature is the display of statues of apostles. There are six of them mounted on pedestals and the facade with the statues similar to the St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. The main altar has the statue of Our Lady with superscription 'Altare Previlegiatum'. It is a magnificent monolithic marble altar, the gift of the late Mr. Nicholas Britto.
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| The Milagres Church, Mangalore, India holidayiq.com |
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| The Milagres Church, Mangalore, India. mangaloreimages.blogspot.com |
De Castro immediately plunged into the church construction work which was completed in 1680. Besides, he settled down here to take care of church activities by staying in the near-by quarters. Upon his death on 16 July 1684, Bishop de Castro's mortal remains were buried in the south eastern corner of the cemetery, where his grave may be identified by its bronze slab next to the St. Monica Chapel.
After Queen Chennamma's death, her successor, King Basavappa repossessed the land. However, in 1715, a local priest Fr. Pinto successfully secured the land from ruler Somashekara II. His nephew Fr. Alfred Pinto who succeeded him, had a new church built at the site of the present church in 1756. Unexpectedly, there was a change in the political scenario and in 1763, Canara came under the control of Hyder Ali who earlier worked for the Wodiyar family. He was considerate toward the Christian community of this area, However, when his son Tipu Sultan became a successor in 1782, the Mangalore Catholic Christian community had a tough time. When Mangalore came under the British control briefly, many Christians worked as soldiers and some worked as spies for the English company. This led Tipu Sultan to believe that the entire Christian community was conspiring against him during the Second Anglo-Mysore War and, in collusion with them, the British are trying to capture his kingdom. Obsessed with this kind suspicion, Tipu captured about 60,000 Mangalorean Catholics on Ash Wednesday 24 February 1784, and herded them to his capital at Seringapatam where they were kept for 15 long years. When the British captured Tipu's kingdom after his death in the final war in May 1799, it is said, only 20000 Mangalore Christians were alive. Besides, in the same year 1784 Ash day, he destroyed 27 churches including the Milagres Church in the Canara area.
After British victory in May 1799, the Mangalorean Catholics were freed from Captivity and most of them subsequently returned to Mangalore. Among the returnees was a baker one Lawrence Bello, who took so much pain to build a chapel to replace the demolished church. With contributions from many sources, including the new government, step was taken to build a new spacious church for which the foundation stone was laid in 1811. For unknown reasons in 1911, the facade of the church collapsed and later the present church structure came up which was designed by Fr. Diamanti S.J. A portico was added later to the structure. No doubt, this nice church is steeped in the history of the Christian community of this area.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milagres_Church_(Mangalore)
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