santuario, diocesano, Santa Maria di Costantinopoli

On the right bank of the Lao river, inside the Pollino National Park, the Santuario di Santa Maria di Costantinopoli is pressed against the rock in a landscape of considerable drama. This is a place of very old solitude. Since the sixth century, the caves and hermitages here have drawn ascetics of the Eastern tradition, seeking spiritual depth. The sanctuary’s presbytery area is thought to coincide with one of those ancient rock-cut cells, the original core of a church built into the cliff.

The structure we see today is a pseudo-basilica with three aisles, expanded between the late 1600s and the 1700s from a much smaller original. The sanctuary’s name comes from a rock-face fresco of the Virgin of Constantinople, of the Hodegetria type, with the Child on her right knee; it is probably 13th-century work. In 1656, the Madonna was credited with delivering the population from plague, and was proclaimed patron saint in 1665. The sanctuary remains a place where archaeology, history and faith meet the rock.

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