santuario, diocesano, Madonna della Grotta

At the foot of Monte Vingiolo, some ninety metres above sea level, the Santuario della Madonna della Grotta occupies a vast natural cavern divided into three interconnected caves, each with its own wide opening to the outside. This is not a church built into a cave; the cave itself is the church. A cobbled staircase, flanked by a votive arch made and donated by the artist Enzo Cucchi in 2012, leads pilgrims upward. On the way, fourteen mosaic-and-pebble Stations of the Cross, created in 1995 by Vittoria Gallori from nearby Praia, invite quiet meditation.

The site has been inhabited since the Upper Palaeolithic, as studies by the Italian Institute of Human Palaeontology have shown. Byzantine monks, fleeing the iconoclastic persecutions of the seventh century and settling in Calabria’s Greek Eparchy of Mercurion, later used the caves. By the sixteenth century, the sanctuary had become a place of worship, and it grew into a focal point for local communities, religious, social, and historical, so significant that a new urban settlement, the present-day Praia a Mare, began to form at its feet.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.