ABOUT

Manapad is a coastal village in far south India, 60 kilometres (37 mi) from Tuticorin and 18 km (11 mi) south of Tiruchendur. St. Francis Xavier came to Manapad in 1542, when he began missionary activity on the Fishery coast. He lived in a grotto cavern on the seaward face of a cliff and held mass at a chapel of the Captain's Cross, built from a ship's mast after a storm in 1540. Holy Cross Church, built close to the sea in 1581, has a relic fragment believed to be from the True Cross of Jerusalem. From 1 to 14 September, every year, the cross is publicly displayed for thousands who attend the festival season. Traditional stories say that in 1540, a Portuguese trading vessel, while sailing around the Cape of Good Hope on its way to the East, encountered a violent storm splitting its sails and snapping the hind mast, leaving it at risk of foundering. The captain, who was devoted to the veneration of the Holy Cross, implored and entrusted the safety of the vessel and that of the crew to the crucified Christ.