When the Lady returned

The 17th-century Bandel Church has a “miraculous” statue which is said to have reemerged from the river.

Every Christmas, the sleepy little town of Bandel, about 40 km from Kolkata, comes alive with lakhs of people congregating at Bandel Church, one of the oldest churches in eastern India.

Once a part of the Portuguese colony, the church was built on the banks of the Hooghly river around 1660. Portuguese settlers were the ones who spread Christianity in this part of Bengal when they set up a base near the Hooghly in the middle of the sixteenth century. Having received the firman (decree) from the Mughal ruler, they set up a factory in Bandel employing the locals. Gradually, the missionaries spread the word of Bible among the natives.

The celebration at this ancient church begins at 10:30 pm with a prayer service, ‘Novena’, followed by the two-hour Midnight Mass with everybody joining in to sing hymns. The church has an in-house thirty-member choir that conducts the special prayer service. Hundreds of Christians from the neighbouring towns of Srirampur and Chunchura attend the ceremony. But, on Christmas, December 25, the church remains closed. Chief priest Thomas Gomes explains the reason: “The church is closed to visitors after the Midnight Mass due to security concerns to prevent any untoward incident in the premises.”

The church was elevated to the status of a minor Basilica in 1988 and is currently being run by the Salesians of Don Bosco. Three high schools — Don Bosco, Auxilium Convent and St John’s High School — are now attached to the church.

The primary attraction of the church, which is dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, is the statue of Lady Bandel located in a niche close to the top of the façade. “It is the statue of miracle,” says Gomes. The belief is that Lady Bandel brings good luck to people and is revered by the locals.

The story goes that the Portuguese colony at Bandel was ransacked when Mughal emperor Shah Jahan invaded it. During the attack, a Portuguese soldier named Diego tried to protect the statue by ferrying it safety in a boat. But he was shot at. The boat sank and along with it sank the statue of Lady Bandel.

Later, when the Portuguese returned to Bandel, the church was rebuilt on the ruins of the old one. “One night, Father Joan da Cruz [the priest who had survived the attack by the Mughals] woke up to see a strange light on the river,” narrates Gomes. The next morning, the local fishermen came to the priest and said that “Guruma”, or “the blessed mother”, had come back. To his surprise, da Cruz found a cross on the field and the lost statue of Lady Bandel a few yards away from the gate of the church. The priest then placed the statue at the main altar. Later, in 1910, it was moved to the balcony of the church.

The belief in Lady Bandel transcends communities. “We have been coming here to pray to Lady Bandel and she has been merciful. We have great belief for her,” says Bimal Barui, a non-Christian native of the neighbouring Srirampur town.

The church is also packed during Easter, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. One spectacular event is the annual Pilgrim Walk from Howrah to Bandel Church on the first Sunday of the Lent Year. The walk marks the sorrowful journey that Jesus made with the cross on his shoulder to the Calvary. “It’s an important event and many Christians from all over the country come to participate in it,” says Gomes.

For Christmas, the church has been decorated to depict the story of the birth of Jesus Christ in a humble stable in Bethlehem. And, thousands of visitors have been thronging the church for blessings from their beloved “Guruma”.