Luz church

  Anyone passing the main road connecting Mylapore to Alwarpet must have noticed that the road they are travelling is named Luz Church Road.  Why is it so?  There is a old church apposite Nageswararao Park in a small lane called Kennedy Street. This church in the Local parlance is called Kattu Koil due to the fact that this area was a forest area covered with wild bushes, trees and plants more than a century ago.  It is called Luz Church.  Legend has it that a group of Portuguese sailors who were caught in a storm in Bay of Bengal in the early decades of the 16th century landed near Santhome following a Light which brought them to this spot.  As a measure of their thanksgiving they constructed a Church here  and called it Luz Church.  Luz in Portuguese means Light. A tablet on the right hand side wall of the church informs it was consecrated in the year 1516  AD. The church is also called the Church of Our Lady of Light. This is supposed to be the oldest church in the Indian sub continent. This church was damaged twice once by the Golconda Army when the attacked Santhome in the 17th century and another by the forces of Hyder Ali in the 1760s when they attacked Madras.