St. Andrew's Church, Puducherry

Among the oldest churches of Reddiarpalayam in Puducherry, St. Andrew's is a working Roman Catholic church under the Archdiocese of Pondicherry and Cuddalore. Its official history credits the first Gothic building, in 1745, to Kanakaraya Mudali, who served the French East India Company as dubash for longer than anyone else, though other accounts date its beginnings to 1642 or 1675. At the opening Mudali held a feast for people of every caste and religion, the first such recorded in South India. The British are believed to have destroyed the church in 1761, and it was rebuilt in 1830.

It is thought to be the first church in South India with a Tamil inscription. A bust of Kanakaraya Mudali stands over his tomb in the precincts, images of Our Lady and St. Andrew stand in glass cases beside the altar, and a grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes lies near the entrance. The main parish feast, Our Lady of Presentation, runs from 24 January to 2 February.