An old tradition holds that Thomas, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, preached in South India and was martyred near Mylapore, then a port town. When the Portuguese arrived in the early 16th century they found a neglected shrine said to be his tomb and built a church over it, consecrated in 1523. Francis Xavier stayed here for some months in 1545, and in 1606 the church became the cathedral of the new Diocese of Mylapore.
The old church was rebuilt in 1896 in the neo-Gothic style then fashionable in British Madras, and it is this white cathedral with its 45-metre spire that stands on Santhome High Road today. Inside are a teak ceiling, stained glass showing Thomas touching the wounds of the risen Christ, and an old pipe organ. A second, smaller tower marks the position of the tomb, which pilgrims visit in a chapel below the church, alongside a small museum.
Pope Pius XII made the cathedral a minor basilica in 1956, Pope John Paul II prayed here in 1986, and in 2004 India's Catholic bishops declared it a national shrine. It is one of very few churches in the world said to stand over the tomb of an apostle. The Kapaleeshwarar temple is a short walk away, and the beach is just across the road.
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