Mount Mary Church

Mount Mary Church, whose formal title is Basilica of Our Lady of the Mount, crowns a hillock in Bandra, Mumbai, and looks out over the Arabian Sea. Portuguese missionaries first built a chapel here in the 16th century, around a statue of the Virgin that they had brought from Portugal, and the church has been rebuilt and enlarged several times since.

The present church is in a semi-Gothic style, four storeys high and 65 feet wide, on deep rock foundations, with two front towers each 98 feet high and 18 feet across. Above the arched Gothic doorway is the basilica emblem with the letters A. M., for Ave Maria. The nave is 67 feet long and 38 feet wide under a teak ceiling 42 feet high and a roof of Mangalore tiles; fibreglass murals show scenes from Mary's life, and on the white marble altar stands the statue of Mary holding the infant Jesus.