santuario, Madonna Greca

At the southernmost tip of Italy, where the Ionian Sea meets an ancient coastline, stands the Santuario della Madonna Greca, a modern sanctuary built in 1991 on the site of older devotions. The church's real treasure is kept elsewhere: a sacred Byzantine-style icon, the Madonna Greca, housed in a chapel within the Duomo of Isola Capo Rizzuto. According to local tradition, a farmer found the painting on the beach at Capo Rizzuto on 5 August, a date still marked by a procession from the cathedral to the church of Santa Caterina. The main festival unfolds across the first days of May, when the icon is ceremonially ‘lowered’ from its chapel, carried through the streets for five hours, and celebrated with an open-air Mass in Piazza del Popolo. The following Monday brings a long, foot-bound pilgrimage from Isola Capo Rizzuto to the Capo Rizzuto locality, accompanied by sung dialect prayers, ending with a blessing in Piazza Duomo. The icon remains exposed for a week before being ‘raised’ back into its custodia.

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