Devotion at Velankanni began in the mid-sixteenth century, and the article says Portuguese sailors later built a modest thatched chapel after surviving a storm. The shrine became a parish in 1771. The southern side was extended in 1928 and the northern side in 1933, and a new white marble central altar was installed in 1961.
Pope John XXIII raised it to a minor basilica by a decree dated November 3, 1962. The article describes the style as Gothic, on a Latin cross plan, with a white building and a red-tiled roof. A 1974 to 1975 extension, shaped to resemble the basilica at Lourdes, has a dome 93 feet (28 meters) high, and the Gothic spires are 82 feet (25 meters) high.
The shrine draws nearly five million pilgrims to its annual novena.
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