Bandel Church

Bandel Church
The Basilica of the Holy-Rosary, Bandel
Bandel Church, Bandel
Location	Bandel, West Bengal
Country	India
Denomination	Roman Catholic
History
Founded	1599
Architecture
Status	minor basilica
Administration
Deanery	Hoogly
Archdiocese	Calcutta
Clergy
Archbishop	Thomas D'Souza

The Basilica of the Holy Rosary commonly known as Bandel Church is one of the oldest Christian churches in West Bengal, India. Situated in Bandel (the name came from the Bengali word "বন্দর" which means "port")[1], Hooghly district of West Bengal, it stands as a memorial to the Portuguese settlement in Bengal. Founded in 1599, it is dedicated to Nossa Senhora do Rosário, Our Lady of the Rosary. It is also a parish church, part of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Calcutta. It is one of the most prominent historical churches in West Bengal as well as in India.

…the Portuguese church, which is now the great sight of modern Bandel. This, the oldest Christian place of worship in Bengal, 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.

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.