St. Anthony's Basilica, Dornahalli

The basilica at Dornahalli in Karnataka is a Catholic shrine to St Anthony of Padua. Its story starts some 200 years ago, when a farmer ploughing his field turned up a wooden statue of the saint and built a small place of worship in his honour. A large church went up on the site in the mid-19th century, and another in 1920.

When that church became dilapidated it was taken down and rebuilt in 1969, though its 1920 facade was restored and kept. The present building is laid out as a Tau cross, in the shape of the letter T, seats a thousand people and keeps a small relic of the saint that came from Italy. A decree of Pope Francis dated 17 October 2019 raised the shrine to a minor basilica.