The Shrine of Our Lady of Madhu, commonly known as Madu Church, is the most sacred Catholic pilgrimage site in Sri Lanka, drawing over a million devotees each year to a remote jungle clearing in the Northern Province. The original statue is believed to have been brought by Catholics fleeing persecution in the 17th century, and the church that now surrounds it is a place of immense faith, healing and communal devotion that transcends the island’s ethnic and religious divisions.
